Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Mummy taken to hospital

ABC2 News

For years it has been a quiet mystery in a glass case at the Walters Art Museum, where it rested a few feet from a 4,000-year-old coffin in what is known as the Afterlife Room.

But Tuesday, the 5-foot, 2,900-year-old mummy traveled by truck to University of Maryland Medical Center for its first-ever CT scan to see whether scientists can learn more about it — including whether it is a he or a she.

For the mummy and its retinue, the biggest challenge was the same one facing everyone negotiating Baltimore's midday traffic: getting there in one piece.

"It's very, very, very fragile," said Regine Schulz, the Walters curator of ancient art and director of international curatorial relations.

With that in mind, a crew of curators and staffers spent two painstaking hours packing the mummy in bubble wrap and tissue paper, then lowering it into a custom pine box, complete with foam bed, for the mile-long trip.

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