Micro-CT scans show 2,100-year-old 'hawk' mummy a stillborn baby

Micro-CT scans show 2,100-year-old 'hawk' mummy a stillborn baby

7 years ago
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https://phys.org/news/2018-05-micro-ct-scans-year-old-hawk-mummy.html

Its misidentification in the Maidstone Museum in the UK, as 'EA 493—Mummified Hawk Ptolemaic Period', came to light in 2016 when the museum decided to CT-scan its resident female mummy and, incidentally, to scan 'EA 493' and other animal mummies at the same time. That's when the smaller mummy surprised experts, who identified it as a human fetus. But the CT scans lacked detail and Nelson worked with the Museum and Nikon Metrology (UK) to conduct a micro-CT scan: an extremely high-resolution scan that didn't entail damaging the mummy in any way.

Nelson then assembled an interdisciplinary team to examine and interpret the images in what has become the highest-resolution scan ever conducted of a fetal mummy.