Forensic anthropologist Andi Simmons was up to her elbow in the interior cavity of the Wayne County Historical Museum's mummy and relishing every minute of it.
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"It's just a phenomenal chance for us," said Simmons, a staff member in the archaeology and forensics lab at the University of Indianapolis.
Simmons and Jeremy Beach, fellow University of Indianapolis forensic anthropologist, came to the museum this week with forensic artist Brenda Robertson Stewart of Indianapolis to assist her in reconstructing the face of the mummy.
Stewart started the project in January, measuring and examining the mummy's skull to create a duplicate on which to build its face. She usually does such reconstruction work on the victims of crimes. As her work progressed on the mummy's face, she discovered that to complete her task, she needed the jawbone, which was somewhere inside the mummy's wrappings.
Guided by recently digitalized X-rays and CAT scans taken in 2000 at Reid Hospital -- when the mummy returned from a loan to a Michigan museum -- Simmons, Beach and others spent a good part of a day seeking the jawbone and exploring the remains, feeling carefully to see where bones have shifted in the mummy's casing.
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