Modern Technology Reveals Mummy's Past

The baby mummy had a European mom, and likely came from a wealthy family. But where he lived and why he died and at such a young age remain a mystery. The mummy, exhibited for the first time Thursday at the Saint Louis Science Center, has been the year-long focus of an international team of investigators. The museum said it may be the most extensive research project ever undertaken on a child mummy. ...

A team of radiologists and geneticists from Washington University studied the mummy. Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist and mummy specialist at The American University in Cairo; anthropologist Dean Falk at Florida State University; and conservator Emilia Cortes of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York also agreed to help.

A small snippet of the mummy's wrapping tested for carbon dating suggested the child had lived between 30 B.C. and 130 A.D., in Egypt's Roman period around the time of Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

Three-dimensional images from CT scans of the child's bones, skull, teeth and body cavity suggested the child lived to be seven or eight months. The CT scans revealed a long wooden rod against the child's back that supported the mummy wrapping. All of the scans were done without having to remove the wrap.

Scans detected a hole in the child's skull. The brain, like jelly, would have drained through the hole and out through a nostril as part of the mummification process, Washington University dentist and anthropologist Charles Hildebolt said. The scans also identified small incisions on the left side of the body through which the child's internal organs were removed and placed in jars. ...

Washington University geneticist Anne Bowcock said she feared the DNA would have undergone chemical changes or been "contaminated" by those who handled the corpse. ...

•	Modern Technology Reveals Mummy's Past Associated Press Online, Friday, March 16, 2007 Byline: Cheryl Wittenauer, Associated Press Writer

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