Mersamun: A Virtual Unwrapping
7 videos • 470 views • by The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures ARCHAEOLOGYs March/April 2009 cover story, "A Mummy's Life," tells of new research on the mummified remains of an Egyptian priestess named Meresamun who lived in Thebes around 800 B.C. Meresamun is the highlight of an exhibition, The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt, on view at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum through December 6. In advance of the show, Meresamun was scanned using a state-of-the-art Philips Healthcare 256-slice Brilliance iCT scanner. (As the mummy glided into the scanner, a message automatically generated by the machine told Meresamun, "Take a deep breath. Now hold it.") Meresamun is the only mummy ever subject to such advanced technology, which allowed researchers to virtually strip away the outer layers of paint from the cartonnage (linen and plaster) coffin, and see through the linen wrappings on the body and reveal the skin and bones beneath. Among the findings, the images showed five roughly oval-shaped amulets on Meresamun's body: one covering each eyelid, one at the neck, one on the chest, and one at the back. They also revealed that her brained had been removed and that her throat had been stuffed with dense wads of packing material. Meresamun had no cavities, but the top layer of her tooth enamel had been worn down by the grit in Egyptian bread, which was made from stone-ground flour.