Researchers in fields from epidemiology to genetic science are studying mummies , using the late imaging engineering science . Now we know more than ever before about what lies beneath the mummies ’ wrappings — and these long - dead people are telling us a sight about ancient lives and acculturation .
Just like modern hospital patient , mummies are subject to in high spirits - technical school test and scans . X - ray , magnetic resonance tomography ( MRI ) , and figure imaging ( CT ) scans let researcher study the anatomy of momma in 3D detail without have to damage the remains with a physical postmortem examination . This keeps the organic structure integral , which is good for science — and can be more venerating of ancient cultural custom , too . Terahertz imaging , the same proficiency used at aerodrome security measures checkpoint , is useful for looking at hidden object like amulet insert into a mummy ’s burial garments . Researchers can even take biopsy , or pocket-size sampling of tissues , to get a closer spirit inside a mummy ’s organs .
CT scan of the mummy in the top image . Credit : U.S. Naval Hospital , San Diego .
What Pollen Can Reveal
Studying momma can yield surprisingly personal glance into how people lived and died in the past . For instance , archaeologists used CT scanning and microscopical analytic thinking of pollento try the mummified remains of an elderly Korean general who died in the sixteenth or seventeenth century .
In the CT image , they found coprolite — preserved feces — in the general ’s large intestine . ( There is footling dignity in last , especially if your corpse is historically significant . ) investigator were concerned in the coprolites because they wanted to jazz what the superior general had eaten in his final days . In particular , they were interested in what kinds of pollen the coprolite contained .
The colon of the mummified general . Credit : Annals of Anatomy
look on how food is prepared , traces of pollen may get ingested along with fruits , vegetables , spices , or tea . Pollen can lounge in the digestive tract for up to three weeks — and if you die and then get mummified , that three weeks can stretch into M of years . In forensic footing , pollen is the epitome of touch grounds . Pollen grains are midget and well-to-do to overlook , but they can reveal a lot of selective information about what the deceased ate and drank , what medicines ( or amateur drug ) he took , and even when he died .
So researchers used chemical technique to extract pollen from the general ’s last intestine movement and then probe the grains under a microscope . His coprolites contained lots of pollen from aquatic industrial plant , but not as much as they would expect to get if he had just been eating the plants ; or else , the pollen seemed to have been in the water system . That says something about the ecumenical ’s water sources , but it also think that he credibly drank a lot of tea and stock in the Day before his death . Analysis also uncovered pollen from a species of sage often used as a medicinal drug for abdominal pain , so it ’s well-fixed to suppose that the general was n’t feel well — although his death appear to have been due to injury , not illness .
However , it seems that the general was n’t entirely on a liquid diet in his last days . stiff of buckwheat pollen , along with pollen from the mustard kinsfolk — which includes bok choy , broccoli , lucre , cauliflower , cress , and table mustard — give us a depiction of what he typically use up . And based on the seasonal availability of those plants ( because there was n’t much of an off - season securities industry in the 1600s ) it seems that the general died during the winter , between November and February .
Tracing Modern Maladies
Mummification does n’t just uphold tissue . It can also preserve ancient DNA , and scientist have the tools to elicit it , sequence it , and study it . In fact , some remains are so well preserved that scientists canextract the DNAof ancient bacterium , viruses , and parasites to ascertain about diseases in the yesteryear .
It ’s a challenging process , and researchers have to be careful not to foul the remains with modern germs during archeological site and lab piece of work . Over the last two decade , however , they ’ve been passably successful . Diseases that have been bury with mummies around the world include Spanish grippe , leprosy , Hepatatis B , and the protozoa that stimulate malaria .
Some of the first researchers to sequence deoxyribonucleic acid from an ancient pathogen were the scientist who educe Mycobacteria tuberculosis bacterium DNA from a 1,000 - year - honest-to-goodness Peruvian momma . They shared their results ina 1994 paper . Other researchers study the desoxyribonucleic acid of tuberculosis in lots of Egyptian mummy , and they’vetracked change in the disease ’s genomeover the 3,000 eld of ancient Egypt ’s history . Their work grant us a better mind of where tuberculosis came from — and how it changes over clock time .
Knowing the evolutionary history of a disease helps modern epidemiologists predict how the disease might evolve during innovative irruption . It can also bring out how the disease is related to other pathogens , pointing doctors toward likely treatments or vaccines .
Mycobacteria tuberculusis . recognition : National Institutes of Health
It also help to know how common a disease was in an ancient universe , how quickly it spread , and which group of the great unwashed were most vulnerable . Today , modern antimicrobic medicines can cover up other factors — like environment or dieting — that could make people more or less susceptible to a pathogen . Learning how that pathogen behaved in a earthly concern before antimicrobial can help doctors well understand how it spread and how to control it .
We ’ve used today ’s most advanced imaging and deoxyribonucleic acid sequencing engineering science to to ascertain about the more humble part of our ancestors ’ lives . archeology revealed their monumental computer architecture and offering to the gods . But only forward-looking engineering allowed us to learn what they ate and what ailed them .
ArchaeologyHistoryMedicinemummiesScience
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