June 24, 2005

MGH helps ID a mummy

Curators at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Department of Egyptology had an unusual dilemma — how could they obtain important information about a wrapped mummified head in their collection? The 4,000 year-old head, which in life belonged to an Egyptian named Djehutynakht, had been at the MFA following excavation from a looted tomb in 1915. Although assumed to belong to Djehutynakht, some of the Egyptologists questioned whether the mummy might be that of his wife, who was buried in the same tomb, and asked Paul Chapman, MD, a neurosurgeon at the MGH and a member of the MFA's visiting committee, for his help. Chapman contacted the hospital's Radiology Department to set up a series of tests that would help determine the mummy's state of preservation as well as gain important information about the mummification process. The curators also hoped to obtain information about the individual's life and death, including gender and evidence of possible disease or trauma.

On June 13 a group from the MFA arrived with the mummy's head — packed in a blue cardboard box — at the hospital's imaging center on Ellison 2. Once x-rays revealed that the skull was remarkably intact, the mummy was taken to the CT scanner where it underwent a series of scans. There was palpable tension in the room as the first images appeared, cloudy at first, and then popping up on the monitor with astounding clarity — revealing that the brain was missing.

MFA conservator Pam Hatchfield with the mummy's head

Rajiv Gupta, MD, PhD, was the MGH radiologist who scanned the mummy. "We won't be able to determine today for certain whether the mummy is a male or female," he said. "It does have a delicate look to it, which makes me think it is a woman." The completed CT scans were sent to the hospital's 3-D Imagining Service where director Gordon Harris, MD, and his team of 3-D technologists worked to fine tune the images into 3-D face and head images to recreate how the mummy looked when alive. A second series of CT scans also were completed at the Ultra-High Resolution Volume CT scanner at CNY, which is capable of observing details finer than a human hair. Those scans — and results — will be available to the museum at a later date.