1 Paleoradiology: History and New Developments - Academia.dk

were evaluated by CT in Toronto. The French team
had missed a historical opportunity and the Toronto
team became the first in the world to perform a CT
scan of Egyptian mummies. The CT investigation included
not only the study of a naturally mummified
brain, but also whole-body imaging of the mummy.
CT helps to assess not only the mummy’s anatomy
without the need of unwrapping, but also in the detection
of amulets or paleopathological lesions. As the
Toronto team used a first-generation CT scanner, the
image resolution was poor. The overall morphology of
the cerebral hemispheres and the ventricular outline
were identified, the demarcation between the white
and grey matters was faint, and a few post-mortem
lacunae were identified. The thickness of each slice
was 12 mm (Harwood-Nash 1979).
a
a
Fig. 1.9. a CT head. b CT abdomen. Both reprinted with permission
from Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins
From this pioneering work to the current period,
CT has been used to investigate many other mummies.
Also, as CT technology has developed over
time, the applications have expanded considerably
(Table 1.3). More recently, micro-CT has been used to
investigate mummy’s materials (Fig. 1.10) and fossils
(Chhem 2006; McErlain et al. 2004). Note that CT
and micro-CT have been used on many bioarcheological
materials other than mummies and skeletal
remains. Although this subject is beyond the scope
of this chapter, there are other sources for this information
(Hohenstein 2004; McErlaine et al. 2004; Van
Kaik and Delorme 2005).
1.4
Paleo-MRI
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides very
detailed anatomical images of organs and tissues
throughout the body without using x-rays, but MRI
works by magnetizing the protons of the water mol-
Table 1.3. A 30-year-history of advanced medical imaging of
mummies: milestones
Author Year Study subject
Lewin and
Harwood-Nash
1977 CT mummy’s brain
(Nakht)-September 27,
1976
Harwood-Nash 1979 CT mummy’s brain and
whole-body
Marx and D’Auria 1988 3D Skull/Face
Magid et al. 1989 3D Entire skeleton
Nedden et al. 1994 CT Guided Stereolithography
Head
Yardley and Rutka 1997 CT ENT (ear-nose)
Melcher et al. 1997 CT dentition-3D
Ciranni et al. 2002 CT skeleton/hand-
tailored for arthritis
Hoffman et al. 2002 3D/Virtual fly-through
“endoscopy”
Ruhli et al. 2002 CT-guided biopsy
Cesareni et al. 2003 3D-Virtual removal
of wrapping
1.4 Paleo-MRI
McErlain et al. 2007 Micro-CT of mummy’s
brain (Nakht)
Karlik et al. 2007 MR imaging and MR
spectroscopy of
mummy’s brain (Nakht)
9