More re Mdina mummy

Times of Malta

The hundreds of people who visited the Museum of Natural History in Mdina yesterday and on Saturday were astonished to learn of an Egyptian mummy encased in a sarcophagus housed there.

Some time ago, Heritage Malta members John J. Borg, museum curator, and Claire Baluci, from the diagnostic science lab at the Bighi Restoration Centre, which falls under Heritage Malta, came up with the idea of putting together a project proposal to look into the history of the mummy. The initiative was hatched on April 16 and a lot of work has already been undertaken.

Forensic expert Anthony Abela Medici and radiologist Pierre Vassallo are assisting in the project.

Mr Borg said Dr Vassallo has carried out a CT scan of the mummy's head and the results indicate that the mummy was a woman aged between 25-35 when she died. Samples from the human remains and the linen from the bandages that cover the mummy have been lifted in order to carry out DNA and carbon dating on them in a foreign lab. The findings will then be compared with those in the data banks at the Cairo Museum and the British Museum.