Ancient mummy is 1st patient for new CT scanner
University of Chicago's powerful device offers hope for better, quicker diagnoses
By Robert Mitchum | Tribune reporter
When doctors at the University of Chicago put the first patient through their new cutting-edge CT scanner, they weren't very concerned about her health. But they did hope to find clues into how she died, 3,000 years ago.
Meresamun, a mummy owned by the university's Oriental Institute, recently had the honor of being the first subject of the university's 256-slice scanner, which is four times as powerful as the previous model and the first of its kind in Illinois.
As a medical tool, University of Chicago Medical Center radiologists say, the scanner will create faster, more accurate images of ailing people's bodies while also reducing their exposure to radiation.
Physicians have used computed tomography, or CT, for more than 30 years to peek inside the body. The scanners contain detectors that loop around a patient, taking a series of X-rays from various angles that are then assembled into a three-dimensional cross-section of the body, or "slice." When slices are stacked together electronically, doctors can reconstruct organs to look for tumors or blood clots.
Older scanners required multiple time-consuming scans to get that kind of information. Newer, faster machines can scan larger parts of the body simultaneously, reducing the amount of radiation for the patient and eliminating image distortion caused when patients shift or breathe during slower scans.
In 1992, it took a 16-slice machine eight hours to scan Meresamun. With the new machine, a full-body scan was done in about 10 seconds. Dr. Michael Vannier, a radiologist, determined that fractures to the woman's sternum, jaw and arm did not cause her death but likely were due to damage after she died. So far they don't know the cause of death.
When used on the living, the new scanner will allow doctors to diagnose potential heart problems quickly in a patient with chest pain or other worrisome symptoms, Vannier said.
In five seconds, a detailed picture of the heart and its major arteries can be taken, radiologists say, allowing doctors to rule out the most dangerous causes of chest pain.
Many radiologists hope sophisticated scanners will replace surgical angiograms someday as the preferred method of diagnosing heart problems, though that proposition is a source of contention between radiologists and cardiologists.
"The chances in the long term of angiography remaining the way it's done today . . . if people think that, I guess they're driving around in stagecoaches and using telegraphs," Vannier said. "It's just about finding the best tool to answer the questions."
The higher resolution provided by the 256-slice scanner also can help doctors better identify tumors in the body and measure blood flow through the circulatory system; it also may replace other invasive diagnostic screening procedures.
Not that any of that matters to Meresamun, whose body lies inside a never-opened wooden coffin.
"It's fun because the person isn't sick," said Emily Teeter, a research associate at the Oriental Institute. "She wasn't complaining about how long she has been waiting for an appointment or worrying about her insurance."
Scanner technology is progressing faster than ever, said Dr. John Hibbeln of Rush University Medical Center and president of the Chicago Radiological Society.
Only three years ago, the 64-slice scanner was the state of the art, Hibbeln said. But at the recent Chicago meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, companies already were showing off scanners beyond the 256-slice machine's capabilities.
"We are kids in a toy store," he said. "This is a tremendously exciting time. This is another advance where we are able to identify, see and characterize things that have not been seen before."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-big-scanner-25-dec25,0,1223594.story
University of Chicago's powerful device offers hope for better, quicker diagnoses
By Robert Mitchum | Tribune reporter
When doctors at the University of Chicago put the first patient through their new cutting-edge CT scanner, they weren't very concerned about her health. But they did hope to find clues into how she died, 3,000 years ago.
Meresamun, a mummy owned by the university's Oriental Institute, recently had the honor of being the first subject of the university's 256-slice scanner, which is four times as powerful as the previous model and the first of its kind in Illinois.
As a medical tool, University of Chicago Medical Center radiologists say, the scanner will create faster, more accurate images of ailing people's bodies while also reducing their exposure to radiation.
Physicians have used computed tomography, or CT, for more than 30 years to peek inside the body. The scanners contain detectors that loop around a patient, taking a series of X-rays from various angles that are then assembled into a three-dimensional cross-section of the body, or "slice." When slices are stacked together electronically, doctors can reconstruct organs to look for tumors or blood clots.
Older scanners required multiple time-consuming scans to get that kind of information. Newer, faster machines can scan larger parts of the body simultaneously, reducing the amount of radiation for the patient and eliminating image distortion caused when patients shift or breathe during slower scans.
In 1992, it took a 16-slice machine eight hours to scan Meresamun. With the new machine, a full-body scan was done in about 10 seconds. Dr. Michael Vannier, a radiologist, determined that fractures to the woman's sternum, jaw and arm did not cause her death but likely were due to damage after she died. So far they don't know the cause of death.
When used on the living, the new scanner will allow doctors to diagnose potential heart problems quickly in a patient with chest pain or other worrisome symptoms, Vannier said.
In five seconds, a detailed picture of the heart and its major arteries can be taken, radiologists say, allowing doctors to rule out the most dangerous causes of chest pain.
Many radiologists hope sophisticated scanners will replace surgical angiograms someday as the preferred method of diagnosing heart problems, though that proposition is a source of contention between radiologists and cardiologists.
"The chances in the long term of angiography remaining the way it's done today . . . if people think that, I guess they're driving around in stagecoaches and using telegraphs," Vannier said. "It's just about finding the best tool to answer the questions."
The higher resolution provided by the 256-slice scanner also can help doctors better identify tumors in the body and measure blood flow through the circulatory system; it also may replace other invasive diagnostic screening procedures.
Not that any of that matters to Meresamun, whose body lies inside a never-opened wooden coffin.
"It's fun because the person isn't sick," said Emily Teeter, a research associate at the Oriental Institute. "She wasn't complaining about how long she has been waiting for an appointment or worrying about her insurance."
Scanner technology is progressing faster than ever, said Dr. John Hibbeln of Rush University Medical Center and president of the Chicago Radiological Society.
Only three years ago, the 64-slice scanner was the state of the art, Hibbeln said. But at the recent Chicago meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, companies already were showing off scanners beyond the 256-slice machine's capabilities.
"We are kids in a toy store," he said. "This is a tremendously exciting time. This is another advance where we are able to identify, see and characterize things that have not been seen before."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-big-scanner-25-dec25,0,1223594.story
Excibición en el Instituto Oriental
Life of Meresamun Exhibit at Oriental Institute
Museum Examines Mummy and Artifacts of Egyptian Temple Singer
"The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt" at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum reconstructs the world of the religious performer.
Exhibited from February 10 to December 6, 2009 are the results of computerized tomography or CT scans of the mummy of Meresamun (ca. 800 B.C.), a singer-priestess.
resto el artículo aquí
http://specialartgalleryexhibits.suite101.com/article.cfm/life_of_meresamun_at_oriental_institute_museum
Life of Meresamun Exhibit at Oriental Institute
Museum Examines Mummy and Artifacts of Egyptian Temple Singer
"The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt" at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum reconstructs the world of the religious performer.
Exhibited from February 10 to December 6, 2009 are the results of computerized tomography or CT scans of the mummy of Meresamun (ca. 800 B.C.), a singer-priestess.
resto el artículo aquí
http://specialartgalleryexhibits.suite101.com/article.cfm/life_of_meresamun_at_oriental_institute_museum
cuelgo la foto en grande de Meresamun
una foto del sarcófago
fuente (mumytombs org)
(fuente www3)
Meresamun fue sacerdotisa, cantante del templo de Amon y divina adoratriz
Exhibition recreates life of temple singer
By William Harms
w-harms@uchicago.edu
News Office
Visitors will come face to face with a newly drawn image of an ancient Egyptian singer-priestess named Meresamun in a new exhibition at the Oriental Institute Museum.
From the instruments she played to details about her health, the exhibition, “The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt,” will provide a personal look into Meresamun’s life.
Details about her health, as revealed in CT scans using the latest equipment, help tell her life story. “In a virtual way, people will be able to meet this remarkable woman and, through her eyes, learn what it was like to live in Egypt 2,800 years ago,” said Emily Teeter, Research Associate at the Oriental Institute and curator of the exhibition. “We will be able to ‘recreate’ the life of an Egyptian in a way no one has attempted before.”
The exhibition will be on display at the Oriental Institute Museum from Tuesday, Feb. 10 through Sunday, Dec. 6. The centerpiece of the show is a brightly decorated coffin that contains the body of a woman who lived in Thebes (modern Luxor) in southern Egypt about 800 B.C.
A brief inscription on the coffin records her name and says that she served as a singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun. Such singers were elite priestess-musicians who accompanied the High Priest as he performed rituals before the god Amun.
In preparation for the new show, a group of faculty, staff and graduate students in Egyptology teamed with Michael Vannier, Professor in Radiology, 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.
A video display will allow visitors to view features of Meresamun’s physical state and perform a “virtual unwrapping” of the mummy, enabling them to see how it was prepared. Advanced digital techniques have made it possible to recreate Meresamun’s appearance.
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.”
Oriental Institute Director Gil Stein pointed out that “interdisciplinary studies, in this case the collaboration of new research in Egyptology and the most advanced imaging techniques, are a hallmark of the University.”
The exhibition includes 71 artifacts ranging from musical instruments, written documents and pottery, to stelae, jewelry and objects similar to those that Meresamun would have had or used inside and outside the temple. A selection of ritual objects, including a sistrum (a type of rattle), an ivory clapper and a harp help to illustrate the temple singer’s duties.
Other objects document ritual activities that she would have participated in, such as the consultation of divine oracles and officiating in animal cults. Other objects, such as a selection of necklaces, hairstyling tools and a hand mirror decorated with gold leaf, reflect her personal life.
Objects on display attest to the remarkable legal and social rights women held in ancient Egypt. A papyrus, for instance, is inscribed with an annuity contract. It states that in exchange for 30 pieces of silver that a woman gave to her husband, he, in turn, was obligated to supply her with a stated amount of silver and grain each year.
Geoff Emberling, the Director of the Oriental Institute Museum, said, “Our collections have seemingly unlimited research value. It is remarkable how the mummy of Meresamun, which has been on exhibit for nearly 80 years, is now the focus of research that is providing new perspectives on life more than 2,800 years ago.”
A public symposium also is scheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21, at the Oriental Institute. Titled “A Mummy Comes to Life: Science and Art Resurrect an Ancient Egyptian Priestess,” speakers will include curator Teeter, Janet Johnson, the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Egyptology, who co-edited the exhibition catalogue; Hratch Papazian, Lecturer in Egyptology; and Vannier, who is editor of the International Journal of Computer Aided Radiology and Surgery.
For more information, call (773) 702-9507 or visit http://www.oi.uchicago.edu.
To become a friend of Meresamun, visit Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ and search for Mummy Meresamun.
Related links:
http://www.uchicago.edu/features/20080804_mummy.shtml
http://oi.uchicago.edu/museum/special/meresamun/
fuente (mumytombs org)
(fuente www3)
Meresamun fue sacerdotisa, cantante del templo de Amon y divina adoratriz
Exhibition recreates life of temple singer
By William Harms
w-harms@uchicago.edu
News Office
| |||||||||||
Visitors will come face to face with a newly drawn image of an ancient Egyptian singer-priestess named Meresamun in a new exhibition at the Oriental Institute Museum.
From the instruments she played to details about her health, the exhibition, “The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt,” will provide a personal look into Meresamun’s life.
Details about her health, as revealed in CT scans using the latest equipment, help tell her life story. “In a virtual way, people will be able to meet this remarkable woman and, through her eyes, learn what it was like to live in Egypt 2,800 years ago,” said Emily Teeter, Research Associate at the Oriental Institute and curator of the exhibition. “We will be able to ‘recreate’ the life of an Egyptian in a way no one has attempted before.”
The exhibition will be on display at the Oriental Institute Museum from Tuesday, Feb. 10 through Sunday, Dec. 6. The centerpiece of the show is a brightly decorated coffin that contains the body of a woman who lived in Thebes (modern Luxor) in southern Egypt about 800 B.C.
A brief inscription on the coffin records her name and says that she served as a singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun. Such singers were elite priestess-musicians who accompanied the High Priest as he performed rituals before the god Amun.
In preparation for the new show, a group of faculty, staff and graduate students in Egyptology teamed with Michael Vannier, Professor in Radiology, 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.
A video display will allow visitors to view features of Meresamun’s physical state and perform a “virtual unwrapping” of the mummy, enabling them to see how it was prepared. Advanced digital techniques have made it possible to recreate Meresamun’s appearance.
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.”
Oriental Institute Director Gil Stein pointed out that “interdisciplinary studies, in this case the collaboration of new research in Egyptology and the most advanced imaging techniques, are a hallmark of the University.”
The exhibition includes 71 artifacts ranging from musical instruments, written documents and pottery, to stelae, jewelry and objects similar to those that Meresamun would have had or used inside and outside the temple. A selection of ritual objects, including a sistrum (a type of rattle), an ivory clapper and a harp help to illustrate the temple singer’s duties.
Other objects document ritual activities that she would have participated in, such as the consultation of divine oracles and officiating in animal cults. Other objects, such as a selection of necklaces, hairstyling tools and a hand mirror decorated with gold leaf, reflect her personal life.
Objects on display attest to the remarkable legal and social rights women held in ancient Egypt. A papyrus, for instance, is inscribed with an annuity contract. It states that in exchange for 30 pieces of silver that a woman gave to her husband, he, in turn, was obligated to supply her with a stated amount of silver and grain each year.
Geoff Emberling, the Director of the Oriental Institute Museum, said, “Our collections have seemingly unlimited research value. It is remarkable how the mummy of Meresamun, which has been on exhibit for nearly 80 years, is now the focus of research that is providing new perspectives on life more than 2,800 years ago.”
 A relief of women dancing, singing and clapping to the beat. ca. 2504 B.C. |
A public symposium also is scheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21, at the Oriental Institute. Titled “A Mummy Comes to Life: Science and Art Resurrect an Ancient Egyptian Priestess,” speakers will include curator Teeter, Janet Johnson, the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Egyptology, who co-edited the exhibition catalogue; Hratch Papazian, Lecturer in Egyptology; and Vannier, who is editor of the International Journal of Computer Aided Radiology and Surgery.
For more information, call (773) 702-9507 or visit http://www.oi.uchicago.edu.
To become a friend of Meresamun, visit Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ and search for Mummy Meresamun.
Related links:
http://www.uchicago.edu/features/20080804_mummy.shtml
http://oi.uchicago.edu/museum/special/meresamun/
Querían averiguar si era virgen
Fotografía a una momia de 3.000 años de antigüedad
Utilizando un escáner de hospital de alta tecnología, la Universidad de Chicago ha logrado realizar una instantánea a Meresamun, una sacerdotisa-coral de un templo de Tebas que vivió hace 3.000 años y cuya sonrisa no se había conocido hasta hoy por estar oculta tras la máscara de su sarcófago. Uno de los objetivos del examen radiológico era descubrir si, como religiosa de Amón, debía o no debía mantenerse virgen.
La sacerdotisa Meresamun, que se cree que murió a los 30 años de edad, fue amortajada dentro de una máscara decorativa que nunca ha llegado a abrirse, según informaciones del diario británico 'The Guardian' recogidas por Europa Press. Por su ataúd, los egiptólogos supieron su nombre y su ocupación de sacerdotisa-coral en uno de los templos dedicados al dios Amón en Tebas. Se calcula que vivió en torno al año 800 antes de Cristo.
Uno de los objetivos de este escáner, realizado con tecnología hospitalaria de última generación era descubrir si, como sacerdotisa-coral que "vivía por Amón", Meresamun mantenía el celibato. Michael Vannier, profesor de radiología de la Universidad de Chicago, que examinó a radiografía tomada de la momia señala que "no hay evidencia convincente" de que Meresamun hubiera tenido hijos en algún momento de su vida, lo que no quiere decir que fuera virgen, apunta.
Lo que sí mostró la fotografía es que los ojos de Meresamun fueron decorados en el momento de su enterramiento con joyas o cerámicas y que sus dientes, 3.000 años después de su muerte, no presentan signos de putrefacción. "Todos los dientes están presentes. No hay evidencia de putrefacción de los dientes o de enfermedad periodontal", una de las enfermedades más frecuentes que derivan en la pérdida de dentadura en el humano moderno.
Anteriores intentos de realizar escáneres al sarcófago de Meresamun en 1989 y 1991 sólo consiguieron obtener borrosas radiografías del interior del ataúd. Por aquellas fotografías se pensó que una mancha aparecida en torno al cuello de la mujer era un tumor que podría haberla matado, pero el último escáner revela que se trata de algún tipo de resina utilizada por los embalsamadores. Así, la causa de la muerte, continúa siendo un misterio.
http://www.europapress.es:80/ciencia-00298/noticia-fotografia-momia-3000-anos-antiguedad-20090209175952.html
Fotografía a una momia de 3.000 años de antigüedad
Utilizando un escáner de hospital de alta tecnología, la Universidad de Chicago ha logrado realizar una instantánea a Meresamun, una sacerdotisa-coral de un templo de Tebas que vivió hace 3.000 años y cuya sonrisa no se había conocido hasta hoy por estar oculta tras la máscara de su sarcófago. Uno de los objetivos del examen radiológico era descubrir si, como religiosa de Amón, debía o no debía mantenerse virgen.
La sacerdotisa Meresamun, que se cree que murió a los 30 años de edad, fue amortajada dentro de una máscara decorativa que nunca ha llegado a abrirse, según informaciones del diario británico 'The Guardian' recogidas por Europa Press. Por su ataúd, los egiptólogos supieron su nombre y su ocupación de sacerdotisa-coral en uno de los templos dedicados al dios Amón en Tebas. Se calcula que vivió en torno al año 800 antes de Cristo.
Uno de los objetivos de este escáner, realizado con tecnología hospitalaria de última generación era descubrir si, como sacerdotisa-coral que "vivía por Amón", Meresamun mantenía el celibato. Michael Vannier, profesor de radiología de la Universidad de Chicago, que examinó a radiografía tomada de la momia señala que "no hay evidencia convincente" de que Meresamun hubiera tenido hijos en algún momento de su vida, lo que no quiere decir que fuera virgen, apunta.
Lo que sí mostró la fotografía es que los ojos de Meresamun fueron decorados en el momento de su enterramiento con joyas o cerámicas y que sus dientes, 3.000 años después de su muerte, no presentan signos de putrefacción. "Todos los dientes están presentes. No hay evidencia de putrefacción de los dientes o de enfermedad periodontal", una de las enfermedades más frecuentes que derivan en la pérdida de dentadura en el humano moderno.
Anteriores intentos de realizar escáneres al sarcófago de Meresamun en 1989 y 1991 sólo consiguieron obtener borrosas radiografías del interior del ataúd. Por aquellas fotografías se pensó que una mancha aparecida en torno al cuello de la mujer era un tumor que podría haberla matado, pero el último escáner revela que se trata de algún tipo de resina utilizada por los embalsamadores. Así, la causa de la muerte, continúa siendo un misterio.
http://www.europapress.es:80/ciencia-00298/noticia-fotografia-momia-3000-anos-antiguedad-20090209175952.html
Más sobre Meresamuny en el enlace hay más fotos.
The Mummy X-posed: The face of an Ancient Egyptian priestess revealed after 3,000 years
David Derbyshire
She has lain undisturbed for nearly 3,000 years, sealed in a decorated coffin ready for her voyage to the underworld.
Now the face of Meresamun, a priestess who sang in the temples of Ancient Egypt hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, has been revealed to the world for the first time.
Using a hospital scanner, scientists were able to peer inside her closed casket, and see through the layers of linen that protected her mummified features
The astonishing three-dimensional pictures reveal her skeleton and her face, apparently with stones placed on the eyes.
Egyptologist Dr Emily Teeter, from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute museum, where a new exhibition featuring the images opens this week, said: ‘It is so exciting to be able to see this.
The mummy is still in the coffin. It is like having X-ray eyes to see the relationship between the coffin, the wrappings and amount of linen used.’
Meresamun is thought to have worked and lived in the temple of Thebes around 800BC. Her name, shown in an inscription on the casket, means ‘She Lives for Amun’ – an Egyptian god.
According to the inscription she was a priestess-musician who served as a ‘Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun’. The scans suggest she was about 5ft 5in and in her late 20s or early 30s when she died.
The cause of Meresamun’s death is unknown and all the more mysterious since she
appears to have been in good health.
The state of her bones shows she had a nutritious diet and an active lifestyle.
Although she bore no signs of dental decay, her teeth were worn down by the grit in Egyptian bread, which was made from stone-ground flour.
The sealed casket was bought in Egypt in 1920 by James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1139142/The-Mummy-X-posed-The-face-Ancient-Egyptian-priestess-revealed-3-000-years.html
The Mummy X-posed: The face of an Ancient Egyptian priestess revealed after 3,000 years
David Derbyshire
She has lain undisturbed for nearly 3,000 years, sealed in a decorated coffin ready for her voyage to the underworld.
Now the face of Meresamun, a priestess who sang in the temples of Ancient Egypt hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, has been revealed to the world for the first time.
Using a hospital scanner, scientists were able to peer inside her closed casket, and see through the layers of linen that protected her mummified features
The astonishing three-dimensional pictures reveal her skeleton and her face, apparently with stones placed on the eyes.
Egyptologist Dr Emily Teeter, from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute museum, where a new exhibition featuring the images opens this week, said: ‘It is so exciting to be able to see this.
The mummy is still in the coffin. It is like having X-ray eyes to see the relationship between the coffin, the wrappings and amount of linen used.’
Meresamun is thought to have worked and lived in the temple of Thebes around 800BC. Her name, shown in an inscription on the casket, means ‘She Lives for Amun’ – an Egyptian god.
According to the inscription she was a priestess-musician who served as a ‘Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun’. The scans suggest she was about 5ft 5in and in her late 20s or early 30s when she died.
The cause of Meresamun’s death is unknown and all the more mysterious since she
appears to have been in good health.
The state of her bones shows she had a nutritious diet and an active lifestyle.
Although she bore no signs of dental decay, her teeth were worn down by the grit in Egyptian bread, which was made from stone-ground flour.
The sealed casket was bought in Egypt in 1920 by James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1139142/The-Mummy-X-posed-The-face-Ancient-Egyptian-priestess-revealed-3-000-years.html
Mummy mia! Scans reveal Egyptian secrets
New hospital scanning techniques have revealed details about the mummified corpse of a 3,000-year Egyptian female singer, without opening her casket.
The images, which go on display for the first time today at Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum, show the remains of Meresamun - a singer priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800BC. The scans may help settle a debate among Egyptologists about the sex lives of such singers.
Meresamun was buried in an elaborately decorated casket which has never been opened. It bears her name, her role as a singer and the inscription "she lives for Amun" (an Egyptian god).
Dr Emily Teeter, from the museum, said: "There is ongoing scholarly debate about whether women who held the title Singer in the Interior of the Temple were, on account of their temple duties, celibate. One specific goal of the most recent CT examination was to determine whether Meresamun had given birth. The evidence was inconclusive."
Dr Michael Vannier, professor of radiology at the University of Chicago, who examined the scans, said they reveal "no convincing evidence of child bearing". He added: "There is no evidence of pre-mortem bony trauma."
In the first ever use of a 256-slice scanner on a mummy, the scans show that Meresamun's eyes were decorated with jewels or pottery. They also reveal that her teeth, though worn down, show no sign of decay. "Remarkably all the teeth are present. [There is] no evidence of tooth decay or periodontal disease (the principal cause of tooth loss in modern humans)," Vannier wrote.
Earlier attempts to carry out scans of Meresamun's caskets in 1989 and 1991 produced only blurry images. It was thought they showed what could have been a tumour on her throat that may have killed her. The new images suggest that swelling around the neck was resin used by the funeral embalmers. The cause of her death, at about the age of 30, remains unknown.
Meresamun, a woman believed to have been a singer-priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800 BC, inside a coffin. The skeleton was scanned at the University of Chicago using a hi-tech hospital scanner. Photograph: Philips Healthcare and University/PA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/09/meresamun-remains-scan
- Matthew Weaver
- The Guardian, Monday 9 February 2009
New hospital scanning techniques have revealed details about the mummified corpse of a 3,000-year Egyptian female singer, without opening her casket.
The images, which go on display for the first time today at Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum, show the remains of Meresamun - a singer priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800BC. The scans may help settle a debate among Egyptologists about the sex lives of such singers.
Meresamun was buried in an elaborately decorated casket which has never been opened. It bears her name, her role as a singer and the inscription "she lives for Amun" (an Egyptian god).
Dr Emily Teeter, from the museum, said: "There is ongoing scholarly debate about whether women who held the title Singer in the Interior of the Temple were, on account of their temple duties, celibate. One specific goal of the most recent CT examination was to determine whether Meresamun had given birth. The evidence was inconclusive."
Dr Michael Vannier, professor of radiology at the University of Chicago, who examined the scans, said they reveal "no convincing evidence of child bearing". He added: "There is no evidence of pre-mortem bony trauma."
In the first ever use of a 256-slice scanner on a mummy, the scans show that Meresamun's eyes were decorated with jewels or pottery. They also reveal that her teeth, though worn down, show no sign of decay. "Remarkably all the teeth are present. [There is] no evidence of tooth decay or periodontal disease (the principal cause of tooth loss in modern humans)," Vannier wrote.
Earlier attempts to carry out scans of Meresamun's caskets in 1989 and 1991 produced only blurry images. It was thought they showed what could have been a tumour on her throat that may have killed her. The new images suggest that swelling around the neck was resin used by the funeral embalmers. The cause of her death, at about the age of 30, remains unknown.
Meresamun, a woman believed to have been a singer-priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800 BC, inside a coffin. The skeleton was scanned at the University of Chicago using a hi-tech hospital scanner. Photograph: Philips Healthcare and University/PA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/09/meresamun-remains-scan
estan saliendo continuamente artículos sobre Meresamun
cuelgo un vídeo y el artículo en el que lo citan.
saludos
17 Febrero 2009
Super X Ray Unwraps 3000-Year-Old Mummy
The face of Meresamun, a priestess who sang in the temples of Ancient Egypt hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, has been revealed to the world for the first time thanks to a X-ray with a light ten billion times brighter than the sun.
Known as Joint Engineering, Environmental and Processing beamline or Jeep, the cutting edge technology uses intense radiation known as synchrotron light to see through solid objects.
The Jeep beamline showed astonishing 3D images of the a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy, still wrapped in her linen bandages.
According to an inscription on the casket, Meresamun (whose name means “She Lives for Amun”) served as a “Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun”. She was in her late twenties or early thirties when she died.
An exhibition featuring the mummy is running at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute Museum ("The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt”, until December 6, 2009)
Here is a video showing the virtual unwrapping of the mummy. One roughly oval-shaped amulet covers each of Meresamun's eyes. Her eyeballs are shrunken but intact.
http://blogs.discovery.com/news_archaeorama/2009/02/super-x-ray-unwraps-3000yearold-mummy-.html
cuelgo un vídeo y el artículo en el que lo citan.
saludos
17 Febrero 2009
Super X Ray Unwraps 3000-Year-Old Mummy
The face of Meresamun, a priestess who sang in the temples of Ancient Egypt hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, has been revealed to the world for the first time thanks to a X-ray with a light ten billion times brighter than the sun.
Known as Joint Engineering, Environmental and Processing beamline or Jeep, the cutting edge technology uses intense radiation known as synchrotron light to see through solid objects.
The Jeep beamline showed astonishing 3D images of the a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy, still wrapped in her linen bandages.
According to an inscription on the casket, Meresamun (whose name means “She Lives for Amun”) served as a “Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun”. She was in her late twenties or early thirties when she died.
An exhibition featuring the mummy is running at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute Museum ("The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt”, until December 6, 2009)
Here is a video showing the virtual unwrapping of the mummy. One roughly oval-shaped amulet covers each of Meresamun's eyes. Her eyeballs are shrunken but intact.
http://blogs.discovery.com/news_archaeorama/2009/02/super-x-ray-unwraps-3000yearold-mummy-.html
Meresamun
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/mummy/meresamun.shtml
Getting By On Her Looks "Priestess of Amun" by Eti Bonn-Muller Using crystal-clear 3-D images from Meresamun's historic scans, two forensic artists reconstruct the face of a 2,800-year-old Egyptian priestess
En el artículo podeis ver además varias fotos que muestran la reconstrucción de la cara de meresamun.
She was more than just a pretty face. The ancient Egyptian Meresamun, who lived around 800 B.C., was a working girl, a priestess-musician who served Amun, the preeminent deity of Thebes. Her mummified remains, sealed 2,800 years ago in a skintight coffin of cartonnage (layers of linen and plaster), were examined by researchers at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute in September 2008 using the latest in CT scanning technology, a "256-slice" machine that produced startlingly vivid images. For months, she has since been the immensely popular subject of the Oriental Institute Museum's exhibition, The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt.
Now, the headline-making CT images have helped two individuals--each working separately with 3-D STL (stereolithography) images of Meresamun's skull produced from the scans, but using different techniques--reconstruct Meresamun's face. Michael Brassell is a Baltimore-based forensic artist for NamUs (pronounced "name us"), the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System established by the National Institute of Justice. He created traditional hand-drawn pencil sketches (digitally colored for an "artsy" effect), using the exact same methods he employs when helping the police track down a cold-case victim. Josh Harker, a forensic artist who lives in Chicago and was originally trained as a sculptor, worked digitally, leveraging the latest software and imaging technology.
"I was delighted to have two very different techniques," says Emily Teeter, an Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute Museum and curator of the Meresamun exhibition. "How often do you look at a police sketch in the paper--of some creep or some unfortunate missing person--and say, 'Yeah, I wonder if they really looked like that?' But there is a lot of similarity between the two reconstructions." The main differences, she points out, are in the shapes of the chin and the nose. "But they both have the same overbite, very much the same cheekbones, and the same shape of the eyes
Mike Vannier, the radiologist who examined Meresamun, agrees. "These people are superbly skilled in this type of forensic work. We were extremely lucky to have individuals of this quality working with the data sets." Vannier has also continued to study the data from the September scans. In recent months, he has learned even more details about Meresamun since our March/April 2009 cover story ("A Mummy's Life"). He's extracted the dentition for detailed views of Meresamun's jaws and teeth, which were severely ground down by the grit in Egyptian bread, and compared them with those from modern patients who grind their teeth, a condition known as bruxism. He's closely examined Meresamun's feet--toes, toenails, vessels, and tendons all intact--and learned that her right big toe points more laterally than the others, a condition known today as halex valgus, one of the steps toward developing a bunion. He believes it would have been caused by her walking patterns and foot ware. He has even spent valuable time in the library, looking for publications that describe CT scans of other mummies, but is frustrated with the lack of comprehensive comparative references. "If you do this type of research, you really want other people to examine your fundamental materials because they can add their own expertise and interpretations and insight," he firmly believes. "I just hope everybody gets on board and starts to share this type of information."
When first approached about commissioning reconstructions, Teeter was not too keen on the idea. "I wanted the exhibition to be about women and music and life in ancient Egypt--and not a mummy show," she says. "But of course, the mummy stuff just took off." After being asked by numerous curious museum visitors what Meresamun may have looked like, she finally, reluctantly, caved. "It's almost like the criticism some people had of making the Harry Potter films," she explains, "the whole idea of creativity and imagination...When you make a film out of it, that's what it becomes to everybody." But after seeing the results? "Now that I have them, I love them!" she beams. "I absolutely love them! It's like--whoa! Meresamun looks like Egyptians you see at Karnak today." Vannier was equally impressed. "A person who's been mummified looks very emaciated and really much less attractive than they would be before the mummification process, so I think reversing that was the striking thing," he says.
Teeter was the advisor for the "cosmetic" features of both reconstructions. She based the addition of bangs in the hairstyle, for instance, on a contemporary stele, also on view in the exhibition, that shows a woman making offerings to a god. "I said, okay, bangs, thick, dark hair pushed behind the ears--so you can see the ears--but the length is really based on nothing. Egyptian hair is normally longer than that. This is a suggestion of the color and texture of very dark, thick Egyptian hair, which is typical. The eye makeup is based on contemporary statues." But there are no similarities between her actual face and the one painted on her cartonnage. "These cartonnage cases are formed over mud and straw cores and coffins are never--until a much, much later period--there's never an attempt to get the coffins to look like a person. They're just like icons of that person."
Ancient Egyptian records talk about the ideal sense of womanly beauty. "A lot of the descriptions are about breasts and hips and coal-black hair," says Teeter. "But they do talk about sweet lips for kissing--and Meresamun's got very sweet lips!"
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/mummy/meresamun.shtml
Getting By On Her Looks "Priestess of Amun" by Eti Bonn-Muller Using crystal-clear 3-D images from Meresamun's historic scans, two forensic artists reconstruct the face of a 2,800-year-old Egyptian priestess
En el artículo podeis ver además varias fotos que muestran la reconstrucción de la cara de meresamun.
She was more than just a pretty face. The ancient Egyptian Meresamun, who lived around 800 B.C., was a working girl, a priestess-musician who served Amun, the preeminent deity of Thebes. Her mummified remains, sealed 2,800 years ago in a skintight coffin of cartonnage (layers of linen and plaster), were examined by researchers at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute in September 2008 using the latest in CT scanning technology, a "256-slice" machine that produced startlingly vivid images. For months, she has since been the immensely popular subject of the Oriental Institute Museum's exhibition, The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt.
Now, the headline-making CT images have helped two individuals--each working separately with 3-D STL (stereolithography) images of Meresamun's skull produced from the scans, but using different techniques--reconstruct Meresamun's face. Michael Brassell is a Baltimore-based forensic artist for NamUs (pronounced "name us"), the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System established by the National Institute of Justice. He created traditional hand-drawn pencil sketches (digitally colored for an "artsy" effect), using the exact same methods he employs when helping the police track down a cold-case victim. Josh Harker, a forensic artist who lives in Chicago and was originally trained as a sculptor, worked digitally, leveraging the latest software and imaging technology.
"I was delighted to have two very different techniques," says Emily Teeter, an Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute Museum and curator of the Meresamun exhibition. "How often do you look at a police sketch in the paper--of some creep or some unfortunate missing person--and say, 'Yeah, I wonder if they really looked like that?' But there is a lot of similarity between the two reconstructions." The main differences, she points out, are in the shapes of the chin and the nose. "But they both have the same overbite, very much the same cheekbones, and the same shape of the eyes
Mike Vannier, the radiologist who examined Meresamun, agrees. "These people are superbly skilled in this type of forensic work. We were extremely lucky to have individuals of this quality working with the data sets." Vannier has also continued to study the data from the September scans. In recent months, he has learned even more details about Meresamun since our March/April 2009 cover story ("A Mummy's Life"). He's extracted the dentition for detailed views of Meresamun's jaws and teeth, which were severely ground down by the grit in Egyptian bread, and compared them with those from modern patients who grind their teeth, a condition known as bruxism. He's closely examined Meresamun's feet--toes, toenails, vessels, and tendons all intact--and learned that her right big toe points more laterally than the others, a condition known today as halex valgus, one of the steps toward developing a bunion. He believes it would have been caused by her walking patterns and foot ware. He has even spent valuable time in the library, looking for publications that describe CT scans of other mummies, but is frustrated with the lack of comprehensive comparative references. "If you do this type of research, you really want other people to examine your fundamental materials because they can add their own expertise and interpretations and insight," he firmly believes. "I just hope everybody gets on board and starts to share this type of information."
When first approached about commissioning reconstructions, Teeter was not too keen on the idea. "I wanted the exhibition to be about women and music and life in ancient Egypt--and not a mummy show," she says. "But of course, the mummy stuff just took off." After being asked by numerous curious museum visitors what Meresamun may have looked like, she finally, reluctantly, caved. "It's almost like the criticism some people had of making the Harry Potter films," she explains, "the whole idea of creativity and imagination...When you make a film out of it, that's what it becomes to everybody." But after seeing the results? "Now that I have them, I love them!" she beams. "I absolutely love them! It's like--whoa! Meresamun looks like Egyptians you see at Karnak today." Vannier was equally impressed. "A person who's been mummified looks very emaciated and really much less attractive than they would be before the mummification process, so I think reversing that was the striking thing," he says.
Teeter was the advisor for the "cosmetic" features of both reconstructions. She based the addition of bangs in the hairstyle, for instance, on a contemporary stele, also on view in the exhibition, that shows a woman making offerings to a god. "I said, okay, bangs, thick, dark hair pushed behind the ears--so you can see the ears--but the length is really based on nothing. Egyptian hair is normally longer than that. This is a suggestion of the color and texture of very dark, thick Egyptian hair, which is typical. The eye makeup is based on contemporary statues." But there are no similarities between her actual face and the one painted on her cartonnage. "These cartonnage cases are formed over mud and straw cores and coffins are never--until a much, much later period--there's never an attempt to get the coffins to look like a person. They're just like icons of that person."
Ancient Egyptian records talk about the ideal sense of womanly beauty. "A lot of the descriptions are about breasts and hips and coal-black hair," says Teeter. "But they do talk about sweet lips for kissing--and Meresamun's got very sweet lips!"
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Artistas forenses recrean el rostro de una momia egipcia
La técnica utilizada para simular el rostro de Meresamun es la misma que se emplea para identificar restos óseos.
A través de diversas tomografías computarizadas basados en el modelo del cráneo, dos artistas forenses pudieron recrear los rasgos faciales de una momia egipcia llamada Meresamun que vivió alrededor del 800 antes de Cristo.
Meresamun, vivió en el templo en Tebas (antigua Luxor) y murió de causas desconocidas alrededor de los 30 años.
Gracias a estos mismos análisis, se pudo constatar que la mujer en el interior de la momia era aparentemente alta para la época y además saludable.
"Meresamun era una mujer muy saludable", dijo Michael Vannier, radiólogo de la Universidad de Chicago.
"La falta de líneas de detención en su huesos indica la buena nutrición a través de su vida y de su huesos bien mineralizados, se extrae que vivió un estilo de vida activo".
RESULTADOS FIABLES
Hasta hace muy poco, los investigadores de la Universidad de Chicago, habían tenido que adivinar cómo era esta mujer detrás de la máscara, y ahora, gracias a esta recreación con tecnología 3D pueden tener una buena idea de cómo lucía, según se indica en el sitio Msnbc.
La técnica utilizada para esta operación, es considerada -según los expertos-, lo suficientemente precisa como para considerar los resultados como los más cercanos a la realidad.
"El cráneo es la arquitectura de la cara, y todas las proporciones están allí, si sabe cómo leerlo", indicó el artista artista Joshua Harker. " Incluso la forma de los labios, nariz y cejas se puede determinar" a través de esta técnica.
TECNICA POLICIAL
Michael Brassell, otro de los encargados de esta recreación y que que trabaja para el departamento de investigaciones policiales de Maryland, señaló que utilizó la misma técnica que en su desempeño en los casos de homicidio.
"El proyecto no fue diferente que cualquiera de los que he hecho para el caso de los homicidios", dijo Brassell".
Las características de esta momia se presentarán a partir de 6 de diciembre en el Museo del Instituto Oriental en Estados Unidos.
http://www.latercera.com/contenido/739_147226_9.shtml
La técnica utilizada para simular el rostro de Meresamun es la misma que se emplea para identificar restos óseos.
A través de diversas tomografías computarizadas basados en el modelo del cráneo, dos artistas forenses pudieron recrear los rasgos faciales de una momia egipcia llamada Meresamun que vivió alrededor del 800 antes de Cristo.
Meresamun, vivió en el templo en Tebas (antigua Luxor) y murió de causas desconocidas alrededor de los 30 años.
Gracias a estos mismos análisis, se pudo constatar que la mujer en el interior de la momia era aparentemente alta para la época y además saludable.
"Meresamun era una mujer muy saludable", dijo Michael Vannier, radiólogo de la Universidad de Chicago.
"La falta de líneas de detención en su huesos indica la buena nutrición a través de su vida y de su huesos bien mineralizados, se extrae que vivió un estilo de vida activo".
RESULTADOS FIABLES
Hasta hace muy poco, los investigadores de la Universidad de Chicago, habían tenido que adivinar cómo era esta mujer detrás de la máscara, y ahora, gracias a esta recreación con tecnología 3D pueden tener una buena idea de cómo lucía, según se indica en el sitio Msnbc.
La técnica utilizada para esta operación, es considerada -según los expertos-, lo suficientemente precisa como para considerar los resultados como los más cercanos a la realidad.
"El cráneo es la arquitectura de la cara, y todas las proporciones están allí, si sabe cómo leerlo", indicó el artista artista Joshua Harker. " Incluso la forma de los labios, nariz y cejas se puede determinar" a través de esta técnica.
TECNICA POLICIAL
Michael Brassell, otro de los encargados de esta recreación y que que trabaja para el departamento de investigaciones policiales de Maryland, señaló que utilizó la misma técnica que en su desempeño en los casos de homicidio.
"El proyecto no fue diferente que cualquiera de los que he hecho para el caso de los homicidios", dijo Brassell".
Las características de esta momia se presentarán a partir de 6 de diciembre en el Museo del Instituto Oriental en Estados Unidos.
http://www.latercera.com/contenido/739_147226_9.shtml
The Mummy X-posed: The face of an Ancient Egyptian priestess revealed after 3,000 years
David Derbyshire
She has lain undisturbed for nearly 3,000 years, sealed in a decorated coffin ready for her voyage to the underworld.
Now the face of Meresamun, a priestess who sang in the temples of Ancient Egypt hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, has been revealed to the world for the first time.
Using a hospital scanner, scientists were able to peer inside her closed casket, and see through the layers of linen that protected her mummified features.
The first level scan reveals the surface of the coffin, left, while a deeper scan shows clear details of the body sealed inside
The astonishing three-dimensional pictures reveal her skeleton and her face, apparently with stones placed on the eyes.
Egyptologist Dr Emily Teeter, from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute museum, where a new exhibition featuring the images opens this week, said: ‘It is so exciting to be able to see this.
The decorative coffin enters the scanner
‘The mummy is still in the coffin. It is like having X-ray eyes to see the relationship between the coffin, the wrappings and amount of linen used.’
Meresamun is thought to have worked and lived in the temple of Thebes around 800BC. Her name, shown in an inscription on the casket, means ‘She Lives for Amun’ – an Egyptian god.
According to the inscription she was a priestess-musician who served as a ‘Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun’. The scans suggest she was about 5ft 5in and in her late 20s or early 30s when she died.
The cause of Meresamun’s death is unknown and all the more mysterious since she
appears to have been in good health.
The state of her bones shows she had a nutritious diet and an active lifestyle.
Although she bore no signs of dental decay, her teeth were worn down by the grit in Egyptian bread, which was made from stone-ground flour.
The sealed casket was bought in Egypt in 1920 by James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute.
febrero 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1139142/The-Mummy-X-posed-The-face-Ancient-Egyptian-priestess-revealed-3-000-years.html
David Derbyshire
She has lain undisturbed for nearly 3,000 years, sealed in a decorated coffin ready for her voyage to the underworld.
Now the face of Meresamun, a priestess who sang in the temples of Ancient Egypt hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, has been revealed to the world for the first time.
Using a hospital scanner, scientists were able to peer inside her closed casket, and see through the layers of linen that protected her mummified features.
The first level scan reveals the surface of the coffin, left, while a deeper scan shows clear details of the body sealed inside
The astonishing three-dimensional pictures reveal her skeleton and her face, apparently with stones placed on the eyes.
Egyptologist Dr Emily Teeter, from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute museum, where a new exhibition featuring the images opens this week, said: ‘It is so exciting to be able to see this.
The decorative coffin enters the scanner
‘The mummy is still in the coffin. It is like having X-ray eyes to see the relationship between the coffin, the wrappings and amount of linen used.’
Meresamun is thought to have worked and lived in the temple of Thebes around 800BC. Her name, shown in an inscription on the casket, means ‘She Lives for Amun’ – an Egyptian god.
According to the inscription she was a priestess-musician who served as a ‘Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun’. The scans suggest she was about 5ft 5in and in her late 20s or early 30s when she died.
The cause of Meresamun’s death is unknown and all the more mysterious since she
appears to have been in good health.
The state of her bones shows she had a nutritious diet and an active lifestyle.
Although she bore no signs of dental decay, her teeth were worn down by the grit in Egyptian bread, which was made from stone-ground flour.
The sealed casket was bought in Egypt in 1920 by James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute.
febrero 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1139142/The-Mummy-X-posed-The-face-Ancient-Egyptian-priestess-revealed-3-000-years.html
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