Science to peer inside 3,000-year-old mummy

The mysteries of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy on display at a museum are to be explored for the first time.
The 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummyThe 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy
The 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy

It has been one of the most popular exhibits at Perth Museum in Scotland since it arrived in the 1930s but very little is known about what lies beneath the bandages.

It is believed to contain either a priestess or a princess from the ancient city of Thebes, but curators are not even certain of the mummy’s sex.

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The exhibit is being transported to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, where it will undergo an X-ray and CT scan for the first time. The work is part of the Ancient Egyptian Animal Bio Bank project at Manchester University.

Lidija McKnight, from the project, said: “This is an extraordinary opportunity to X-ray a mummy which has never been studied before, making us the first people to see inside the wrappings since the body was mummified thousands of years ago.

“We hope that by combining modern science and the expertise of the Bio Bank team at the University of Manchester, the Perth mummy will be better understood, promoted and conserved.”

The mummy will be transported by road in a custom-built case accompanied by the museum’s history officer, Mark Hall, and will return today.

It is hoped the scan will reveal evidence of how the individual lived and died, its age, details of diet and any diseases suffered.

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