Mummies getting a closer look

ST. LOUIS -- A team of experts in St. Louis is examining an Egyptian mummy to determine what killed him 3,000 years ago.

The mummy of Egyptian priest Amen-Nestawy-Nakht is getting another CT scan, and researchers hope to learn not only how he died but more about his health. His last scan was several decades ago, when technology wasn't at the level it is now, the St. Louis-Dispatch reported.

On Sunday, art movers hired by the Saint Louis Art Museum picked up three mummies, including Amen-Nestawy's. The wrapped corpses were taken to the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the Washington University School of Medicine, where a team of professors, doctors and radiologists examined the bodies.

Michelle Miller-Thomas, a radiologist who specializes in head, neck and brain imagery, said that 3-D X-ray scanners are the best way to look at the mummies.

"There's no other way without unwrapping them and permanently damaging their remains," she said.

This handout photo shows the image of a mummy’s head and neck, which was captured via CT at the Center for Advanced Medicine on the Washington University Medical Center campus on Sunday in St. Louis. The computer adds color to the 3D images to exaggerate differences in tissue. This is a CT scan of Henut-Wedjebu, an upper-class woman from the 13th century B.C. who was buried with her brain still in her skull. (Robert Boston ~ Washington University)

The scan of Amen-Nestawy's mummy showed that the priest's body was shorter than his wrappings and that his spinal fracture was so severe that it couldn't have happened before his death, according to doctors.

They say the fracture could have been the result of an early grave robbery. Doctors also found a circular object in the middle of his chest that appeared to be a two-centimeter-wide amulet.

Experts will study the results for a few months.

Video and images taken during the CT scans will be a part of the exhibit at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

The museum owns Amen-Nestawy's mummy and two others belong to the Washington University's Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. The mummies of Pet-Menekh, a priest from the 3rd or 4th century B.C., and Henut Wedjebu, a 13th-century B.C. woman, are on loan to the Saint Louis Art Museum.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com