Unravelled after 3,000 years, the secrets of the singing mummy
HER body has lain undisturbed for almost 3,000 years.
Now, thanks to modern technology, the secrets of Tamut’s life are being unwrapped without upsetting her peace.
This remarkable image shows the beautifully-preserved body of a female Egyptian temple singer from 900BC.
Using a CT scanner in London hospitals, experts f rom the British Museum peered through the intricately decorated burial case and the multiple layers of linen bandages to the person hidden inside.
The electronic excavation showed Tamut to have received the most lavish level of mummification, with amulets and other mystical jewels buried with her. These include artificial eyes, to allow her to see in the afterlife, thin plates of gold or another precious metal on her finger and toe nails and metal plates designed to magically heal the wounds left by the embalmer.
Some of the amulets were placed on her body – others were put inside, beside her vital organs.
Her hair was short, likely because she wore a wig, and examination of
‘Tattoos and toothache’
her pelvis suggests she was at least 35 when she died. The cause of death is unknown – but the scans provide a tantalising clue.
They show a large part of the femoral artery in her upper thigh to be clogged with fat, a piece of which could have broken off and triggered a heart attack or a stroke.
The hieroglyphics on her burial case tell us who she was and who her parents were. They also reveal she was a chantress of the god Amun – or a temple singer. Tamut is one of eight mummies to be virtually unwrapped in the British Museum’s Ancient Lives, New Discoveries exhibition from May 22.
The men, women and children lived along the banks of the Nile in Egypt and Sudan between 3500BC and 700AD and their lives and deaths are now revealed in unprecedented detail.
The images come from CT scanners – which are normally used to diagnose tumours, fractures and heart disease. The scanners use X-rays to produce images of slice after slice of the mummies. The information is then knitted together using software designed for the car industry. By calling up material of a specific density, it was possible to view bandages, skin or bone and so peel back layer after layer.
Not all of individuals examined were rich – some were mummified simply by burying them in the hot desert sand soon after death.
The scans and other examinations revealed evidence of tattoos and toothache, as well as the hardening of the arteries that plagued Tamut.
One striking image shows the end of a spatula clearly lodged in the skull of a man who died in Thebes around 600BC. It is thought the wooden or reed tool broke when the embalmer was trying to break up the man’s brain and remove it through his nose, while preparing him for his journey to the afterlife. His life would have been a painful one, with scans revealing holes in his jaw left by pus-filled dental abscesses.
A third exhibit delves into the life of a young woman who was mummified naturally after being buried in the sand 1,300 years ago. She lived in a Christian community and her upper thigh bears a tattoo symbolising the Archangel Michael.
It hoped that all of the museum’s 100-plus mummies will eventually be unwrapped with the aid of scans and other modern technologies.
British Museum curator John Taylor said: ‘This is really cutting-edge, we are getting clarity and detail we haven’t seen before.
‘We don’t want to disturb what’s inside these bodies. They are incredibly fragile resources and they are also human beings who actually lived and we always have to keep that in mind.
‘So when we investigate mummies now, it is not by unwrapping but by using visualisation technology to look underneath the bandages in a nondestructive way.’
Most of the mummies in the exhibition have been in the museum for at least a century. Tamut was part of a collection built up by a French diplomat in the 1890s. Some had undergone X-rays in the 1960s.
The exhibition, which runs until November 30 , is sponsored by banking group Jules Baer and electronics giant Samsung.