Since the end of the 19th century, mummies have been an interesting piece of Egyptian history that have fascinated many generations.
Now with scanning technology, scientists are delving into what happened to some mummies without destroying them.
Andrew Nelsion, a bioarchaeologist at the Western University in Canada, used detailed micro-CT scans to virtually unwrap a small-scale mummy.
The mummy, originally thought to be a hawk, actually reveals a more tragic story. Using the CT-scans, Nelson and his team found out that the hawk mummy is actually a stillborn baby.
The baby died between 23 and 28 weeks of gestation with a rare condition called anencephaly.
This condition causes the brain and skull to not develop properly.
The mummy was originally termed ‘mummified hawk ptolemaic period,’ but CTscans completed in 2016 finally revealed the truth. That’s when it was discovered that it was a human fetus. The museum that it was stored in did not have detailed enough technology.
Nelson worked with the museum and Nikon Metrology of the United Kingdom in order to conduct a micro-CT scan.
This method is an extremely high resolution scan that does not damage the mummy in any way.
Nelson then brought together a team in order to examine and interpret the high resolution images.
The images show wellformed toes and fingers. The skull presented severe malformations. Nelson commented, “The whole top part of his skull isn’t formed. The arches of the vertebrae of his spine haven’t closed. His earbones are at the back of his head.”
There are no bones to shape the roof or sides of the skull, around the area where the brain would normally develop. “In this individual, this part of the vault never formed and there probably was no real brain,” Nelson says.
These scans make this fetal mummy one of the most detailed via imaging.
The teams’ results were presented and much information can be utilized from the data, mainly the mother’s diet.
Anencephaly is a result of the lack of folic acid, found in green vegetables.
It also provides some clues concerning whether or not fetus mummies were used as talismans like mummified animals.
Experts from several fields and nations helped out on this project.