The hospitals of Lyon welcomed a very special patient, a patient out of time. A mummy underwent a scan to better understand previously unseen details about human health. Scientists hope to learn more about mummification, but also about “the life of the deceased and their physical characterization”.
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Doctors and researchers welcomed a new patient in Lyon. A 3,000-year-old senior official, now known as the mummy Seramon, came for a scan. Preserved at the Museum of Fine Arts and Archeology in Besançon, the mummy traveled to Lyon to undergo a scanner which should make it possible to “revealing the best kept secrets beneath the mummy’s wrappings”.
The examination was carried out using new technology: “a spectral scanner with photon counting”, according to the press release from HCL (Hospices Civils de Lyon).
Thanks to this new generation scanner, which “has all the advantages of a standard scanner”doctors have access to “new previously invisible information about patients”. In the case of the mummy, scientists hope to go further than the last scanner taken in 1984. The spectral scanner will allow us to take a new step in the exploration of this treasure from ancient Egypt.
So much valuable information to learn more about the treatment of the body and mummification, but also about the life of the deceased and their physical characterization, with a view to better conservation and possible restoration.
In their press release, the HCL mentions “a world first” and explain that “Thanks to this examination, scientists should be able to read for the first time the hieroglyphs inscribed on the heart scarab of Seramon, or to identify the amulets of the necklace which had not been able to be identified until now “.
The researchers were also able to visualize previously unknown pathological elements, “such as vertebral fractures, hip osteoarthritis and carotid atheroma”.
The examination of the mummy took place in Lyon last September.
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“The interest of this approach is to combine a modern medical vision carried by the Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University and the Hospices Civils de Lyon, with historical questions around the mummy Séramon”, explained Salim Si-Mohamed, doctor at the Hospices Civils de Lyon.
Still according to HCL, “many secrets still remain to be elucidated”the heart having not yet been clearly identified.
