Tuesday 29 March 2011

Egyptian Mummy

Scientific Verification :

Mummies were much sought-after by museums worldwide in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and many exhibit mummies today. Notably fine examples are exhibited at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, at the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin, and at the British Museum in London. The Egyptian city of Luxor is also home to a specialized Mummification Museum. The mummified remains of what turned out to be Rameses I ended up in a Daredevil Museum near Niagara Falls on the United States–Canada border; records indicate that it had been sold to a Canadian in 1860 and exhibited alongside displays such as a two-headed calf for nearly 140 years, until a museum in Atlanta, Georgia, which had acquired the mummy along with other artifacts, determined it to be royal and returned it to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. It is currently on display in the Luxor Museum.

Modern scientific methods are being applied to mummies for archeological research. Mummies can be studied without the need to unwrap them using CAT scan and X-ray machines to form a digital image of the body. This has been very useful to biologists and anthropologists, providing a wealth of information about the health and life expectancy of ancient people. In 2008, the latest generation CT scanners (64- and 256-slice Philips machines at the University of Chicago) were used to study Meresamun, a temple singer and priestess at the Temple of Amun whose mummy now resides at the Oriental Institute of Chicago. Mummies have also been used in medicine to calibrate CAT scan machines at levels of radiation that would be too dangerous for living people.
Scientists interested in molecular cloning the DNA of mummies have reported findings of analyzable DNA in an Egyptian mummy dating to circa 400 BC. Although analysis of the hair of Ancient Egyptian mummies from the Late Middle Kingdom has revealed evidence of a stable diet, Ancient Egyptian mummies from circa 3200 BC show signs of severe anaemia and hemolytic disorders.
Dr. Bob Brier of Long Island University has been the first modern scientist attempting to apply ancient Egyptian methods of mummification.

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