Egyptian Mummies are artefacts of an ancient time. They have survived for thousands of years because they are so well preserved but it is this preservation that if unwrapped, makes them venerable to the moisture in the air.
At the same time there are potentially many interesting research questions that could be answered by unwrapping such ancient Egyptian Mummies. For these research reasons CT scans were taken of this Mummy. The Mummy had a gold plated cartonage mask over the bandages that complicated the visualization process. Specialist image processing software was produced so that volume rendering could be applied to the resulting data. 3D visualization revealed the internal structures that were hidden beneath the bandages.
N.B. The CT scan was of relatively low resolution. This produces artefacts that look like lines running horizontally in the visualizations. It is always best to use high resolution medical scan data for visualization.
Volume rendering of the Egyptian Mummy. On the left is the cartonage mask while on the right is her skull. Both renderings were taken from the same camera view. This shows that the Mummy is not lying flat beneath the mask, her head is twisted down and is 'looking' to her right.
This work was originally completed in 1998 when 4 animations were made to be displayed in an event at the Manchester Museum. Later these animations were used in for a much longer exhibition at the Science Museum in London. The original animations are given here.
Last updated by Joanna Leng on the 15th of August 2011.