The University of Chicago Hospitals recently got hold of the Philips‘ Brilliance iCT 256 slice CT scanner. The first patient to be imaged on the device is a 2,800 year old mummy of an Egyptian singer-priestess named Meresamun. Now visitors to the University’s Oriental Institute’s exhibit, “The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt,” will get a look inside the fragile wooden coffin.
From The University of Chicago:
In preparation for the new show, a group of faculty, staff and graduate students in Egyptology teamed with Michael Vannier, Professor in Radiology at the University to undertake a multidisciplinary approach to reconstructing Meresamun’s life. “A goal of the study and of the exhibit was to make the past less abstract by recreating the life of a specific individual. It is amazing how much information about Meresamun’s life can be mined from scenes on tomb and temple walls and from ancient texts, and how familiar so many aspects of her life seem to us today,” Teeter said.
In 1991, Medical Center radiologists examined the mummy and coffin with CT scans and then again in summer 2008. The mummy had a “call back” last September after the Medical Center installed the newest generation CT scanner. Meresamun was the first subject in Chicago to be studied with the Philips Healthcare Brilliance iCT (“Intelligent CT”) 256-channel scanner, which gave dramatically detailed views.
She was tall by ancient standards—5-and-a-half feet—her features were regular with wide-spaced eyes, and she had an overbite. “Meresamun was, until the time of her death at about 30, a very healthy woman,” Vannier said. “The lack of arrest lines on her bones indicates good nutrition through her lifetime and her well-mineralized bones suggest that she lived an active lifestyle.”
Here’s more from CNN with CT data video:
University of Chicago press release: Oriental Institute Exhibition Recreates Life of Temple Singer
Flashback: Demand Is High for Brilliance iCT, a 256-Slice CT from Philips