CT Scan Confirms Mummified Remains

News May 7, 2014

SHARE:

SWANSEA, WALES—A mummified baby at the museum at Swansea University had been thought to be a nineteenth century forgery of a 26th Dynasty Egyptian artifact because of its meaningless inscriptions and inconclusive results from an x-ray of its cartonnage case in 1998. But a CT scan at the Clinical Imaging College of Medicine by Swansea University’s Paola Griffiths showed a dark area that could be the remains of a fetus and what could be a femur. An amulet and strings of beads or tassels were also spotted. “We can imagine that the probable fetus represents someone’s terrible loss; an occasion of great grief and public morning,” Egypt Center curator Carolyn Graves-Brown told the South Wales Evening Post.

  • Features March/April 2014

    All Hands on Deck

    Inviting the world to explore a shipwreck deep in the Gulf of Mexico

    Read Article
    (Courtesy NOAA)
  • Features March/April 2014

    Messengers to the Gods

    During a turbulent period in ancient Egypt, common people turned to animal mummies to petition the gods, inspiring the rise of a massive religious industry

    Read Article
    Courtesy The Brooklyn Museum
  • Letter From Borneo March/April 2014

    The Landscape of Memory

    Archaeology, oral history, and culture deep in the Malaysian jungle

    Read Article
    (Jerry Redfern)
  • Artifacts March/April 2014

    Chimú-Inca Funerary Idols

    Read Article
    (Matthew Helmer)