Matthew Weaver The Guardian, Monday 9 February 2009
New hospital scanning techniques have revealed details about the mummified corpse of a 3,000-year Egyptian female singer, without opening her casket.
The images, which go on display for the first time today at Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum, show the remains of Meresamun - a singer priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800BC. The scans may help settle a debate among Egyptologists about the sex lives of such singers.
Meresamun was buried in an elaborately decorated casket which has never been opened. It bears her name, her role as a singer and the inscription "she lives for Amun" (an Egyptian god).
Dr Emily Teeter, from the museum, said: "There is ongoing scholarly debate about whether women who held the title Singer in the Interior of the Temple were, on account of their temple duties, celibate. One specific goal of the most recent CT examination was to determine whether Meresamun had given birth. The evidence was inconclusive."
Dr Michael Vannier, professor of radiology at the University of Chicago, who examined the scans, said they reveal "no convincing evidence of child bearing". He added: "There is no evidence of pre-mortem bony trauma."
In the first ever use of a 256-slice scanner on a mummy, the scans show that Meresamun's eyes were decorated with jewels or pottery. They also reveal that her teeth, though worn down, show no sign of decay. "Remarkably all the teeth are present. [There is] no evidence of tooth decay or periodontal disease (the principal cause of tooth loss in modern humans)," Vannier wrote.
Earlier attempts to carry out scans of Meresamun's caskets in 1989 and 1991 produced only blurry images. It was thought they showed what could have been a tumour on her throat that may have killed her. The new images suggest that swelling around the neck was resin used by the funeral embalmers. The cause of her death, at about the age of 30, remains unknown.
"Remarkably all the teeth are present. [There is] no evidence of tooth decay or periodontal disease (the principal cause of tooth loss in modern humans)"
Well, what did they expect; she was a woman, likely with a reasonable livelihood, and so, must have been very sensitive about elements of her face...and certainly would not have settled for bad teeth.
Posted by Tigerlily (Member # 3567) on :
Here are some pics - incl. the teeth - for the interested reader!!
I wonder if it's possible to find out what she died of. Also as far as the role of temple singers, are there not analouges in modern day African cultures to which they can find clues about this occupation?
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Well, what did they expect; she was a woman, likely with a reasonable livelihood, and so, must have been very sensitive about elements of her face...and certainly would not have settled for bad teeth.
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