New details are already arising from last week's CT scan of the Spurlock Museum's nearly 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy, according to museum director Wayne Pitard. The scanning took a little more than an hour and was done free of charge March 29 by Dr. Joseph Barkmeier of Carle Foundation Hospital. Spurlock's collections management team spent a year planning the five-minute trek to Carle and constructed a specially designed case to keep out the elements and reduce impact on the mummy from any movements.
Pitard said the mummy, "probably our most popular artifact," was first scanned at Carle in 1989, but the scanner wasn't detailed enough to show the mummy's age, cause of death, or even whether the child was male or female. Instead, the information was used to digitally reconstruct the child's face. The hope this time around is that two decades of CT technology advances will provide answers to all of the questions - and maybe answer a few that haven't yet been asked.
Pitard said the researchers, which include Sarah Wisseman, of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, and UI alumnus David Hunt, a forensic anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution, would continue to pore through the data and release new information at a November symposium. "They've started the work," Pitard said, "but they're not ready to draw any conclusions." The child is estimated to have been between 7-9 years old, but a crushed pelvis and the mummy's pose (with hands over the "critical anatomical location") have made it difficult to determine much else. Pitard said researchers won't yet release findings, but the new tests have provided more details. "I'm very encouraged by the preliminary notes that have been sent to me. We have some potential hints of what killed the child," he said. "We're going to have a great deal of new information, and they have some other tricks up their sleeves."