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An Egyptian mummy decorated with images of a woman contained a surprise, since the body of a 5-year-old girl was only there when she died.
Scientists learned more about the mysterious girl and her burial, thanks to high-resolution scans and “fine rays” of X-rays that pointed to very small areas of the intact artifact.
CT scans of the mummy teeth and femur confirmed the girl’s age, although there were no signs of trauma to her bones that could indicate the cause of her death.
In a new study published on the website “scince alert” K, scientists reported that high-intensity directed X-rays also revealed a mysterious object placed in the boy’s abdomen.
Scans performed on the mummy about two decades ago were low-contrast and it was difficult to see many details, but for the new analysis, the researchers performed new CT scans to visualize the entire structure of the mummy.
They are then focused on specific areas using X-ray diffraction, in which a highly focused X-ray beam bounces off atoms in crystalline structures; Differences in diffraction patterns reveal the type of material the object is made of.
This is the first time X-ray diffraction has been used on an intact mummy, said study lead author Stuart Stock, a professor of cell research and evolutionary biology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
The mummy, known as “Hawara Portrait No. 4 Mummy”, is in the collection of the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, excavated between 1910 and 1911 at the ancient Egyptian site of Hawara, and dates back to approximately the 1st century AD. , when Egypt was under Roman rule. .
“During the Roman era in Egypt, they started making mummies with the plates attached to the front surface,” Stock told Live Science.
“Several thousand were photographed, but most of the images were removed from the mummies that we have, maybe only 100-150 photos are still attached to the mummy,” he added.
Although the image of Mummy No. 4 showed an adult female, the small size of the mummy indicates otherwise: scans confirmed that the mummy was a girl, still so small that none of her permanent teeth were visible.
Its body measures 37 inches (937 mm) from the top of its skull to the soles of its feet, and the pods added another 2 inches (50 mm), according to the study.
The researchers also discovered 36 needle-like structures in the case: 11 around the head and neck, 20 near the feet, and five in the torso. X-ray diffraction determined that these were modern metal wires or staples that may have been added to stabilize the artifact sometime during the past century.
Stock suggested that one of the surprising discoveries was an uneven layer of sediment on the mummy wrappings, and the attending priests may have used the clay to secure the mummy bandages.
Another puzzling finding was a small oval body about 0.3 inches (7 mm) long, which the researchers found on the spiral of the mummy above the abdomen, and called the object “inlay F.”
X-ray diffraction showed that it is made of calcite, but what is it? One possibility is that it could have been an amulet involved, Stoke said, because the boy’s body was damaged during mummification.
After this unfortunate accident, the priests would often place an amulet like a scarab on the damaged part of the body to protect the person in the afterlife, and the newly discovered calcite “point” was the correct size and in the correct position. to be and Stoke explained that the protective beetle.
However, the resolution of the CT scan was not high enough to show the details carved into the object, making it impossible to determine what it could be, he said.
“Every time you go to a study like this, you get good answers. But then more questions come up,” Stock said.
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