X-RAYS OF MUMMIES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4792, 22 December 1924, Page 4

X-RAYS OF MUMMIES.

ASCERTAINING CAUSES OF DEATH.

DETERMINING ANCIENT DISEASES. Recently, at the Feld Museum of Natural History in Chicago, it was found possible by a series of experiments to take X-ray photographs of mummies. The experiments were started by X-raying a group of Peruvian mummy packs from the Necropolis of Ancon. These had been collected for the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, and since have been in the possession of the museum. To nave unwrapped these mummy packs to ascertain whether they contained objects of special interest would have meant their destruction for exhibition purposes. By means of the X-ray pictures it is possible to learn what has been buried with the body, thus determining beforehand whether or not it is advisable to unwrap the bundle. In the mummy packs thus far examines have been found ears of corn, pottery vessels of clay containing shells, bits of metal, gourd vessels, beads, clay figurines, cut-bone objects—or, in some instances, nothing. In addition to the range of objects found in the various bundles it is possible to gather something definite concerning the age, sex, and condition ol the bony structure of the body buried therein. The nature of injuries received during the individual• life is sometimes revealed, and one can determine whether the deceased suffered from chronic rheumatism, tuberculosis of the bones, caries, arthritis of various kinds, and other diseases. In the Peruvian mummies th ns far examined none of the trephining operations which were practised in Peru on its prehistoric inhabitants have been discovered. In the Egyptian collections mummified cats, hawks, Jackals, crocodiles, gazelles, and one mummy of a man of the 26th dynasty, about 600 8.C., have been radiographed with very satisfactory results. The mummy of a man was radiographed in five sections, beginning with the head, furnishing a very clear picture of the entire skeleton. Here we may expect to find fractures, pathological conditions, such as bony tumours, rickets, hydrocephalu pyorrhoea, and caries of the teeth, all of which have been shown in the examination of unwrapped skeletal material to have been common conditions of disease among Egyptians bi most ancient times. In the picture of a hawk even the tail feathers are very clearly shown. The picture of the mummy of a zazeDe brings out the skeleton with remarkable distinctness; that of the crocodile also shows the bones still to be in their proper relative positions. The mummy of a jackal, which was wrapped with extreme care, is shown to contain slight traces of the bony structure of that animal, while the textile material within is in a condition which indicates that it had never been disturbed since its wrappings had been placed in position. Further investigations arc to oe made upon this same class of material, as well as upon vessels made of marble, alabaster, and metal. —Scientific American.