SLAM: Peering Beneath Mummies' Wrappings

ST. LOUIS, MO — A team of St. Louis experts will discuss their findings from a series of CT scans of ancient Egyptian mummies in “Ancient Artifacts, 21st-Century Technology: Unlocking Mummies’ Secrets,” a panel discussion at the Saint Louis Art Museum at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 16.

Lisa Çakmak, the museum’s associate curator of ancient art, will be joined by radiologists from Washington University’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology — Dr. Sanjeev Bhalla, Dr. Vincent Mellnick and Dr. Michelle Miller-Thomas. All of the panelists were part of a team that in 2014 scanned three ancient mummies at the Center for Advanced Medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

CT scans — sometimes referred to as CAT scans — use special equipment that emits a narrow X-ray beam to obtain images from different angles around the body and head.

One of the scanned mummies — Amen-nestawy-nakht — is owned by the Saint Louis Art Museum. The other two — Padi-menekh and Henut-wedjebu — are owned by Washington University’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum but are on loan to the Saint Louis Art Museum.

The lecture is free, but tickets are required. Tickets are available in-person at the museum or through MetroTix, which charges a service fee of $3 per ticket. Same-day tickets, if available, can be obtained only at the museum.

Image via YouTube