Egyptian Mummy Receives New Diagnosis

WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA—A team of radiologists from St. Mary’s Medical Center examined the 2,100-year-old mummy of a child from the “Tombs & Treasures of Ancient Egypt” exhibit at the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium. Based upon X-rays taken more than 40 years ago, it had been thought that the child was between the ages of four and nine at the time of death, and that she had succumbed to tuberculosis, which can wear away bone. That diagnosis relied upon what appeared to be missing vertebrae in the lower spine. (Braided hair under her gilded mask suggest the child was a girl.) Views of the girl’s teeth from the new scans indicate that she was no more than three and one-half years old at the time of death, and the missing vertebrae were found lodged in her chest. They were probably displaced during the mummification process. The doctors think that the girl died of appendicitis—a “small, bright spot” in her central abdomen is thought to be a calcified deposit that blocked the organ and caused it to rupture. “Thanks to medical science, technology, and brilliant engineering we are unlocking secrets today that can inform history more than 2,000 years old,” Lew Crampton, CEO of the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium, told The Sun-Sentinel. To read about animal mummies in ancient Egypt, see ARCHAEOLOGY's "Messengers to the Gods."