Local radiographer to X-ray mummies

It could be the next Indiana Jones flick: "Desert Mummies of Peru."

But for the next 16 days, graverobbers, archaeology and 1,000-year-old mummies will be real life for Pete Barger, who is leaving today for Ilo, Peru, where he will use his skills as a radiographer to X-ray the mummified remains of an ancient culture to unearth clues about how they lived.

"It's exciting for me, I've never done anything like this in my life," said Barger, who is the radiology program director for Southeast Missouri Hospital's College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

Barger, a resident of Jonesboro, Ill., is expected to join a group of about 50 other students and professors from Arkansas State University as a team leader. They will travel to Ilo, which sits in the foothills of the Andes Mountains near the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Barger's group is one of a number of teams that studies the mummies and answers questions about an ancient Peruvian people known as the Chiribaya.

National Geographic will be on hand, filming for its "Explorer" series, Barger said.

"I'll make sure to wear my Southeast Hospital hat," he said.

Information in the bones

Barger will help dig up mummies in the Atacama Desert and then X-ray them. Those pictures of bones often reveal information such as what killed a person, his diet, if he had a disease, even if a woman had several children.

For example, if a child was a victim of human sacrifice, the typical ritual required bashing him in the head, Barger said. That is obvious in an X-ray reading.

If a person had tuberculosis, then the spine is eroded. If they ate stone-ground corn, the teeth are worn down by tiny stone fragments. When a woman has multiple children, there are scars on the pelvis.

"We can learn so much about their culture," Barger said. "It's such a wealth of information hidden right there in their bones."

Time is of the essence because civilization is expanding northward toward the valley where an estimated 250,000 mummies are buried, preserved in the desert sand.

Also, graverobbers descend upon the area at night, ruining the mummies by removing the cloth and taking the valuable textiles, jewelry and other artifacts that were buried with people for use in the afterlife.

Rick Carlton, director for the Center of Medical Imaging at Arkansas State University, recruited Barger to go on the trip.

"He's an experienced radiographer," Carlton said. "He's been doing this a long time. His talents will be put to good use."

Carlton said the trip is both academic and archaeological.

The research also can help the public health issues of today, he said. Two years ago, the group documented that tuberculosis was not, as originally thought, brought to the country by the Spanish during the conquest of the 16th century. It was already there.

"Once they realized it wasn't a European strain, it changed their whole thinking about how to fight TB," Carlton said. "This is more than the Indiana Jones thing, everybody running around having an excellent time. We're doing some good."

There are some things about the Chiribaya that are already known, Carlton said. They lived in peace for more than 1,000 years. Sometime around 1350, torrential rains loosed a giant debris flow on the Chiribaya, barreling down the Ilo River valley at 70 mph, burying farms and cities up to 30 feet deep.

Carlton estimated that of the estimated 250,000 mummies, only 4,000 have been discovered. Usually 400 to 500 mummies are unearthed each year.

"So there's plenty of work to be done," he said.

Maturing profession

As for Barger, he hopes that any publicity that he gets for his trip is directed at the hospital's College of Nursing.

"In the bigger picture, our challenge in radiology is to grow up as a profession," said Barger, who started the radiology program here two years ago. "Patients always think, 'What wonderful doctors and nurses,' but they don't ever think of the person who gave them their X-ray."

Though, as someone who gives X-rays, Barger says for the next 16 days, he won't have to tell his patients to sit still and hold their breath.

"Although I bet I do say it through force of habit at least once," Barger said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-611, extension 137