Scientists Can Now Peek Inside Mummies in a Whole New Way
George Dvorsky
Today 5:45pm
A revved-up version of traditional CT scanning shows it’s possible to acquire microscopic-scale images of ancient Egyptian mummies, revealing previously unseen features such as blood vessels and nerves.
Non-destructive x-ray and CT scans are a boon to medical scientists and healthcare practitioners, but they’re also an indispensable tool for archaeologists who try not to disturb ancient remains any more than they have to. When it comes to studying ancient mummies, these scanning techniques have been used to sketch the rough outlines of soft tissue and hair, and even to reveal interior features such as muscles and bones.
A new proof-of-concept study published this week in Radiology shows a modified version of CT scanning, called phase-contrast CT scanning, can be used to do microscopic-scale imaging of soft-tissue in human mummies. This imaging technique detects the absorption and phase shift (similar to how light changes direction when it passes through a lens) that happens when x-rays pass through a solid object. The resulting images feature a higher level of contrast than traditional x-ray images.
This method, which has been around for about 10 years, is particularly good at capturing the high contrast needed to visualize soft tissues, but up until now it’s only been used in medicine to scan the insides of such things as livers, hearts, and veins.
More:
https://gizmodo.com/scientists-can-now-peek-inside-mummies-in-a-whole-new-w-1829371296