In the Lab: Another mummy goes under the scanner

Before:
nbc33tv

From Egyptian ruins to an x-ray room in Bakersfield, California. Scientists at Cal State Bakersfield are using modern technology to reveal what is under wraps.

Before the scan of a 2,500 year old mummy, CSUB Professor Robert Yohe had his own idea of what lied beneath. "We think it’s a male and that if it was a male it was a short male," said Yohe.

But after the scan. "There seems to be some arthritic changes to the vertebrae. There also seems to be somewhere on the teeth the third molars are erupted so it's a mature adult female which we didn't know before," Yohe said.

The cat scan only took 25 seconds. But the 3-d images have already become pages of history.

After (with photographs):
Bakersfield.com

It's a girl!

But this is no baby. She is a 2,400-year-old mummy that had been on display at Cal State Bakersfield and was put through a CT scan Monday at Quest Imaging.

The mummy was originally thought to be male because a man's name was written on the coffin, but it was common practice to re-use coffins, so it wasn't surprising to learn it was a female.

The scan was done to learn about the person who had been mummified, including the person's age, sex, lifestyle and possibly cause of death, said Lorenzo Michaels, operations manager at Quest Imaging.

The mummy, in a wooden crate, was taken to Quest in a van. Screws were removed from the crate. The mummy was transferred to a gurney, using a board to safely move it in preparation for the scan. The scan itself only took about 25 seconds -- and the interpretation of the scan followed.