Modern Equipment Sees Beneath Mummy Rags

A T L A N T A, Nov. 29, 2000 -- Researchers at Emory University are using thesame technology to find and diagnose disease in the living and todiscover the secrets of the dead.

Using computer tomography, or CT, scans of 19 Egyptian mummiesacquired by the Michael C. Carlos Museum in 1999, the scientistsare gathering information that could not otherwise be obtainedwithout destroying or unwrapping the bodies.

One of the mummies might be Ramses I, founder of Egypt’s 19thdynasty and ruler between 1292-1290 B.C.

“We put the mummy just like a patient on the table and into theCT machine,” said Heidi Hoffman, a resident in radiology at Emoryand one of the authors of a report on the research.

Computer Puts Picture Together

The machine generates a number of cross-sectional images, orvisual slices, of the mummies. The images are then fed into acomputer program that creates three-dimensional images of themummified bodies and allows for what Hoffman calls a“fly-through,” or the creation in the viewer of the impression ofgoing inside the mummy itself.

Although she had no background in Egyptology or archaeology,Hoffman said she leapt at the opportunity to research the mummies.

“My standard as a doctor has been a normal human body, so whenI first looked at these CT scans I said, ‘What the heck am Ilooking at?’” she said by phone from Chicago, where she presenteda paper on the findings at the convention of the RadiologicalSociety of North America.

Among their conclusions, Hoffman and her colleagues say theappearance and posture of one of the bodies and the embalmingmethods used could mean it is that of Ramses I, grandfather ofRamses II or Ramses the Great.

Uncanny Resemblance

If it is, said James Harris, a retired professor of orthodontiaat the University of Michigan who has studied the royal mummies inCairo since the 1960s, it would be a “huge contribution” to thefield of Egyptology.

“Right now we have a gap after the end of the 18th dynasty,”he said. “We have for example the mummy of Tutankhamen, but thennothing until Seti I, who was the son of Ramses I.”

Hoffman said the mummy, which arrived at the museum with itshead almost completely unwrapped, bears an uncanny resemblance toimages of Seti and Ramses II.

“The high cheek bones and other facial features are similar,”she said.

While it might be questionable to base such a claim onsubjective, visual assessments of facial features, Harris saidprecise measurements and numerous facial X-rays show that themummy’s bone structure is similar enough to that of other royalmummies to indicate common ancestry.

“I think it’s a good possibility this mummy is Ramses I,”Harris said, “especially if it can be shown to come from the rightperiod of time. That’s really the key to the whole puzzle.”

Carbon dating could pinpoint the time within a range of 40years, Harris said, and that, together with other evidence, couldgive scientists a high probability. Officials at the Carlos Museumhope eventually to use DNA testing to identify the mummy.

Hoffman said the mummy arms were crossed over the chest in apose used only on royalty or nobility. The skull was emptied ofbrains and filled with a costly embalming resin.

Back to Regular Life

Resin was also found in his abdomen, which had been emptied oforgans and filled with tightly rolled linen packs, an embalmingpractice Hoffman said was used during the period when Ramses Ilived.

Emily Teeter, curator of Egyptian antiquities at the OrientalInstitute, University of Chicago, said such evidence doesn’t go farenough to prove the mummy is Ramses I.

“That’s completely non-diagnostic,” she said. “We have abunch of non-royal mummies, and some have crossed arms. And fillingthe skull with resin was standard embalming procedure.”

Teeter, who first began using CT scans to study mummies in 1991,admits she was also struck by the resemblance to Ramses II and saidfurther study — especially DNA evidence — may prove that Emory’smummy is the famous patriarch.

Whatever the conclusion, the research has converted Hoffman toan enthusiastic Egyptologist.

“It’s opened up a whole new field and facet of radiology forme,” she said.

Her fascination, however, isn’t strong enough to keep her fromher goal of establishing a private practice in radiology.

“I’ll be back at Emory reading mammograms on Wednesday,” shesaid. “Back to my regular life.”