CT and laser-scanning techniques have combined to examine the mummy of a priest buried in Thebes 2,800 years ago, and to recreate his life and death. Nevine El-Aref stepped into the world of cutting-edge technology to see how the secrets were revealed Since early this month, the British Museum's special exhibitions gallery above the old British Library Reading Room has been converted into a theatre with a 12-metre curved screen for the virtual viewing of the mummy of Nesperennub, an ancient Egyptian priest who served the cult of Khonsu in Karnak Temple about 800 BC. The technology is by Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI), of Mountain View, California. The museum no longer unwraps mummies as it did in the past, and this interactive, 3-D visualisation has been brought about by non-invasive techniques. The tour inside Nesperennub's corpse probes his secret layers and reveals details of his age, lifestyle, appearance, state of health and how he was mummified. A number of gold shields, amulets and scarabs of carved stone ceramic and wax were also located on his body. Nesperennub's coffin has been one of the British Museum's most treasured exhibits since it was purchased in 1899. Before being chosen for this ground-breaking experiment, the beautifully painted sarcophagus had rested peacefully since being sealed by embalmers shortly before burial in Luxor's West Bank near the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings. The mummy was X-rayed during the 1960s, but the cloudy images showed only that the deceased was an adult in his early 40s. Now computer technology, CT (computerised [axial] tomography) and laser-scanning techniques have allowed the mummy's inner secrets to be exposed. The visualisation of the body has been achieved by 3-dimensional volume rendering techniques developed by SGI, a process also used in medicine and in car and spacecraft design. Using a CT scanner, more than 1,500 cross-sectional slices, one millimetre thick each, were taken at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London. It was the first complete ancient body to be fully rendered interactively in a 3-D volumetric form. "This sophisticated software is already in use in oil exploration, weather forecasting, medical diagnosis and military training, but this was its first use in Egyptology," Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), told Al-Ahram Weekly. Hawass said that unwrapping mummies, all that was available in the past, provided some knowledge but caused irreversible damage to the body and wrappings, with at best loss of context of all objects found within the bandages and at worst complete destruction of the mummy. This invasive technique was used to examine the mummy of Tutankhamun. "In Victorian times, Egyptian mummies were unwrapped at public spectacles, which were invasive and ultimately damaging to the mummy," John Taylor, an assistant curator at the British Museum, said. "We are gathering information here without disturbing the casing or cartonnage at all. We can reveal so much more than the naked eye can see." Using the new techniques, SGI and British Museum experts embarked on a two-year process of discovery, dissecting the corpse and even probing deep into its spine. In an interview with The Observer newspaper, Taylor said: "All we really know about a mummy from the outside is what the person's name is and what they did as a job. We can now find out what they looked like, how old they were, whether they were healthy and how they died." But what was really new was that Nesperennub could be used again and again as an experimental model instead of offering a series of static images. Together the scientists and historians have discovered every detail of the dead priest's physical condition and burial. They know, for instance, that he had an abscess at the base of one of his teeth and that the embalming team who worked on him made rather a botched job. It is not possible to tell from the outside, but a burial pot was accidentally glued to the priest's head. "The team must have assumed no one would ever find out, so they just carried on and covered it up," Taylor said. According to Afshad Mistri, SGI's director of marketing for advanced visualisation, the study also solved a mystery about Nesperennub's mummy. In the early 1960s, an X-ray of his remains revealed a dried placenta on his head. Scientists thought it was an umbilical cord. But the SGI images revealed the placenta to be a shallow bowl of coarse, unfired clay. "It is a most unusual object to find within the wrappings of a mummy," commented Mistri. But when the mummy's head is viewed in 3-D from different angles and under a variety of visualisation settings, an important clue becomes apparent. It was probably used by embalmers to hold the resin poured over Nesperennub's body as part of the mummification process. Perhaps they placed it on the mummy's head and apparently forgot to remove it after working on the body and left it stuck to Nesperennub's head. An area on the back of the head from which the skin appears to have been torn away may represent an unsuccessful attempt to prise off the lumps of resin that anchored the bowl in place. "Realising that the bowl could not be removed without causing further damage, the embalmers may have decided to proceed with the wrapping of the body, hoping that their mistake would pass unnoticed," Taylor concluded. "But it would not be the first or the last time that Egyptian embalmers made errors." Yet there is one new mystery about this priest, who once officiated at rituals inside the temple of Khonsu in Karnak. In the process of creating a 3-D representation of his skull, the team discovered a small hole, like a bullet hole, near his brain. "It is an anomaly," Taylor wrote in the book entitled Mummy: The Inside Story, which was published for the occasion. He added that because it appears to be destroying the brain from the inside out and yet it does not seem to be the cause of death. Neurologists have suggested a variety of explanations, ranging from a tumour to a cranial form of tuberculosis, but nothing fits completely because there are no other signs of disease in the body. They also revealed that the deceased had a tooth abscess. Passing over the shoulders and crossing on Nesperennub's chest, the CT-scanning located red leather tabs known by Egyptologists as "mummy- braces". Next to them were two other leather pendants in different forms, seen clearly lying on the chest. A second pair of tabs was also visible at the sides of Nesperennub's neck, which might be a counterpart to those on the breast. "These tabs and pendants are of value to historians," Taylor said, adding that they often bore embossed inscriptions that named the Pharaoh who reigned at the time. "But the 3-D images do not tell us whether or not the tabs on Nesperennub's mummy are inscribed." The CT-scans show that Nesperennub wears rings on the fingers of each hand. They are of a relatively dense material, most probably a metal, perhaps even gold. "Nesperennub probably wore his rings in life, but their bezels may well carry inscriptions or devices which would help to promote the well-being of the wearer after death," asserted Taylor. A large number of amulets made of stone, metal or glazed ceramic were placed within the bandages as way of bestowing special powers or protection. Their position was important. Many were placed on the neck and upper body of the body, regarded by ancient Egyptians as the most vulnerable area. Close to Nesperennub's right collar bone is a roughly oval object made of a dense substance that, due to its shape, size and location, Egyptologists suggest is a heart scarab. A group of small amulets is seen clustered at the throat. "Some of these amulets can be recognised instantly by their shape," Taylor said. One is the djed pillar, a symbol of the god Osiris providing magical stability and the power to stand up during the resurrection process. Another is the wedjat, the eye of Horus, which confers protection on the wearer and safeguards him from harm. On the lower part of the mummy's breast, just below the winged pectoral, is an object whose shape resembles that of the "papyrus sceptre" amulet. This represents a sheaf of the papyrus plant bound in the form of a tall column or staff. It is usually made of greenish glazed faience and its colour, as well as its botanical origin, symbolises new life by association with the growth of plants. One of the most intriguing features uncovered above the deceased's right eye was a small, cobra-shaped object which represents the hieroglyphic sign for the sound dj of magical properties. The 3-D images revealed that this snake object is in very close proximity to the face of Nesperennub, and if not actually in contact with his skin it must be attached to the innermost layer of wrappings. "Because snake amulets are so rare, its precise significance is unknown," Taylor said. He believed that its positioning on the mummy's forehead might possibly suggest some connection with the Uraeus serpent. Nesperennub's snake may have had two magical functions: the first to guard him against evil forces in the afterlife and the second to suggest that he had gained a higher status in the world of the gods, more akin to that of a Pharaoh. "We have been able to recreate Nesperennub the man. This experience is really quite unique, where technology meets archaeology and reveals the methods of another advanced technology of its time, that of the ancient Egyptians," David Hughes, Reality Center solution manager at SGI, said. Helped by a police procedure used to identify decomposed bodies, Caroline Wilkinson of Manchester University was able to produce a facial reconstruction of Nesperennub. She said that pegs were attached to a replica of Nesperennub's skull at specific points. These indicated the depth of soft tissue usually present as those locations on the human head. With these pegs as reference- points, muscles, eyes and skin were modelled in clay and attached to the skull. When the process was complete, artificial colouring was applied to the skin and eyes to produce a realistic impression. "The bone structure, of course, does not determine every contour of the soft tissue, and so a reconstruction of this kind can never be one hundred per cent accurate," Taylor said. Nesperennub's reconstruction takes account of his age as estimated from the state of his skeleton, and he is shown without hair as befitted a priest. Mummy: The Inside Story, written by David Dugan, is drawing crowds to the British Museum, especially now that the school holidays have begun in the UK. While queuing time at the museum's box office is only about 10 minutes and the film is shown every half hour, tickets sell out quickly and seats may not be available until three or four shows later. Jenny Jobbins, however, managed to obtain one. Once the visitors, clutching their 3-D glasses, are inside the gallery they are treated to a short, informative video amid screens displaying mummification and the cult of the afterlife before being ushered to their seats. The voice of Sir Ian McKellen (better known nowadays as Gandalf) suggests that if you feel unwell during the performance, you might like to remove your specs and close your eyes for a moment. One wonders what is to come. At once objects start leaping towards you from the screen: Nesperennub's name (which means "He who belongs to the House of Gold") and amulets, and then the outer coffin and cartonnage case are removed, and you find yourself entering the priest's leg bone. Even though there were only a few cries of "Yuk!" from the audience, the children were quiet, but perhaps they were too bewildered to make a sound. None of the gruesome details are skipped. This is, clearly, a corpse you are looking at. There is a vivid reconstruction of the brain being withdrawn through the nostrils, of the head being daubed with fluids. When the embalmers find they have accidentally left a bowl of resin under the head and it has fused to the skin they try to prise it off, stripping the skin, but finally give up and bury the bowl in situ, a rather inglorious crown. Little did they know their secret would come to light nearly 3,000 years later. The virtual tour of Karnak and of the inside of the tomb where the identical coffins of Nesperennub and his wife were found intact, as well as the re-enactment of the priests conducting sacred rituals, are guaranteed not to make you want to remove your glasses. You learn that Nesperennub was also fan-bearer to the Pharaoh, that he died in his early 40s, an average age of death at the time, and that he was 1.62m tall, an average height; that he had all his teeth but suffered from chronic toothache and may have had a brain tumour. You learn that the tomb and burial rituals were paid for out of the income from a farm he owned. "He hoped to reach the next world," McKellen pronounces, "and perhaps he had, in a way he could never have imagined."
