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CNN Live At Daybreak

Egyptian Mummy Gets CAT Scan

Aired April 03, 2002 - 05:57   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Since 1899, the mummy of a priest from Egypt's Thebes has been on display in London's British Museum. And now, for the first time in 28 centuries, scientists are getting a look at the priest without unwrapping the burial cloth. They're doing it through image scanning technology.

CNN's James Hattori has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 3,000 years, the mummy of Nesperennub held secrets to his life and death. Now for the first time, a three-dimensional visualization is giving researchers a detailed glimpse inside the casing.

DAVID HUGHES, SGI: What the volume visualization technology allows us to do is to look at the whole of the mummy all at once in very high detail.

HATTORI: Of course nothing was actually removed from the mummy. A precious relic which has been on display at London's British Museum since 1899, scientists use data from a medical CAT scan or a Computed Axial Tomography scan and sophisticated SGI equipment and software to render three-dimensional images which can be easily manipulated.

JAMES TAYLOR, SGI: You can rotate it and really explore it interactively. For instance, I could cut away the back of the skull so that we can see inside the skull. And then more than that, actually get inside and look out for Nesperennub's eye sockets.

JOHN TAYLOR, BRITISH MUSEUM: This technology is ideal for investigations of this kind, because it doesn't touch the mummy at all. It's completely non-destructive.

HATTORI: Museum researchers knew much about Nesperennub. It is believed he was a priest living in Thebes, Egypt, who was buried on the West Bank of the Nile around 800 BC. But these new images revealed some surprises.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if we rotate that so we can now look...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the strangest things we've seen is an object that lies on top of the mummy's head. And this turns out to be a ceramic bowl. HATTORI: Researchers believe the bowl may have been used to hold substances used in a mummification process. Still, it's a mystery why the bowl was left atop the mummy's head. With more study, researchers hope to identify objects within the wrappings, determine Nesperennub's age and state of health when he died, maybe even reconstruct his face, unmasking more secrets into the ancient past.

James Hattori, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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