#Wrath of the mummy code skin

#Wrath of the mummy code skin

This was cosmetic: the skin would lose its plumpness during the drying period and become wrinkly. The process of embalming was heavily ritualized: after 35 days of drying out the body, Tamut's brain was removed from inside her head with a hook inserted through her nostril. I set in place in your body for you.' The heart, rather than the brain, was believed to be the centre of consciousness in ancient Egypt. Spell 151 is written on the wall: 'I bring your heart to you. Decayed though exquisite sections of papyrus from the book are displayed here. These charms could be activated with spells from the Book of the Dead (circa 1450BC). Blue artificial eyes made of glass or stone have been placed in her eye-sockets there is a blue scarab on her heart, a winged deity on her throat. His remains are 5,000 years old but his presence is vivid. He was buried in a cemetery in Gebelein, Upper Egypt, and naturally mummified by the dry, hot sand. This young man was in his twenties or early thirties when he curled up into a foetal position and died. It seems charged with a supernatural energy and I half expected it to wake up. The first mummy on display is extraordinary. This is how the interior of unwrapped mummies is now investigated: sophisticated digital visualisation allows us to see 3-D images of everything beneath those cloths вЂ“ from tooth abscesses to undigested food in the gut to approximate age, sex, and status. The mottled, yellow-brown surface of the body is contrasted to the white clinical environment. There is another poignant and surreal photograph, taken recently, which shows an embalmed mummy being loaded into a CT scanner at the Royal Brompton Hospital. Much precious documentation was lost during careless discoveries in the 19th century and there are gaps in the stories that the curators tell with such skill вЂ“ though this only makes us use our imaginations. They come from Egypt and the Sudan, spanning 4,000 years. There is a man with a beard painted on his face and feminine breasts fashioned out of padding. There is a magnificent gold coffin which conceals a two-year-old, his head lowered. The mummies range from a seven-year-old temple singer to a doorkeeper. Instead the curators' aim is to illuminate not only the deaths but the lives of eight very different individuals from the ancient world вЂ“ and in this respect they succeed admirably. The question of how and why they came into our possession in the first place is a significant one. They must bear in mind that they are dealing not merely with the remains of real human beings вЂ“ however long dead вЂ“ but also those from other countries, acquired during a time of empire. Rather than cutting open the mummies, these days institutions like the British Museum are legally bound to be sensitive. This exhibition considers how we can understand the mummy in a non-invasive way using the latest CT technology.