Murphy, William Parry 235One of the mummies had been obtained uncovered
from the waist up. X rays performed in the Radiology
Department at Albany Medical Center showed that this
mummy had a male pelvic structure. The other mummy
was completely wrapped in the original burial bandage
(3,000 years old), and it had always been assumed that this
was another male priest. X rays, however, demonstrated a
female pelvic structure, proving this to be the mummy of a
woman. According to the hieroglyphics on the side of the
wooden coffin containing the male mummy, he was a
priest named Ankhefenmut. Since the coffin was not
sealed at the time it was obtained by the AIHA, absolute
identification of this mummy could not be certain. The
name and station in life of the female mummy remain a
mystery to this day.
X rays of each mummy included the skull, spine, pelvis,
and lower extremities. Skeletal structures were amazingly
well preserved. The 3,000-year-old bones had an apparently
normal density and were not eroded or fractured. CT stud-
ies visualized the thoracic and abdominal cavities, cranial
vault, and spinal canal. As described in other studies
including anatomic dissection and CT, the oval-shaped
objects in the thoraco-abdominal cavities contained the
dried-out inner organs wrapped in multiple layers of linen,
which created a “jelly-roll” appearance on CT. The skull
was filled with air and a solidified liquid that corresponds to
the resin used in the mummification process. Because the
cranial vault and the spinal canal are contiguous, the resin
had flowed into both and had solidified.
The most novel finding of this study was the discovery
of a well-crafted, two-component great-toe prosthesis (arti-
ficial toe) in the female mummy. This prosthesis attaches
directly to the first metatarsal bone of the right foot. The dis-
tal portion of the prosthesis has a CT density measurement
of –600 Hounsfield units, which is that of air. This is probably
some low-density air-filled shell that looks like a toe. The
more proximal socketlike portion, which holds the toe, mea-
sures +1,318 Hounsfield units. This is very high-density
material, but it does not appear to be metal on X ray. It may
be some form of high-density ceramic, which exactly fits
the “toe” and rests upon the first metatarsal bone of the
foot. This prosthesis has only been visualized with X ray and
CT because the female mummy has never been unwrapped
from her burial cloth. The reason for the artificial toe stems
from the ancient Egyptian belief that one should enter the
hereafter “whole.”
A recent report in the British medical journal The Lancet
describes a wooden prosthesis of the great right toe of a
female mummy from the 21st or 22nd dynasty (ca. 1065–740
B.C.E.), which is the same time period as the AIHA mummy.
The amputation site was covered with skin, indicating that it
was an intravital (during life) amputation. This prosthesis was
composed of three separate components. The main compo-
nent consisted of a perfectly shaped wooden corpus (12 ×3.5
×3.5 cm), which resembled a big toe including the nail. This
was attached to two small wooden plates that were fixed to
each other by seven leather strings. According to the
authors, there were clear marks of use on the sole of the
prosthetic toe, indicating that it had been used during life.
Inearly 1989 a collaborative study was performed
between the AIHA, the author, and William Lorensen, Ph.D.,
of the General Electric Corporate Research & Development
in Schenectady, New York. The CT data obtained from the
November 1988 mummy studies was used to perform the
first-ever computer-assisted “unwrapping” of a mummy.
Using a proprietary surface-algorithm program developed
by Dr. Lorensen, the mummy’s facial linen was removed in a
computer program capable of sensing differences in sur-
face shading. (The original study is in the archives of GE
Corporate Research & Development.) When multiple
images from this study are viewed in ciné mode, there is
clearly the visual impression that the linens are actually
being removed.Computed tomography (CT) shows the prosthesis on a
mummy’s foot. The prosthesis is composed of a high-density
U-shaped holder and a low-density “toe.” The mummy has
never been unwrapped, and only X ray and CT have
provided images of one of the most carefully constructed
toe prostheses ever seen. This appears in an article written
by Dr. Wagle for the American Journal of Roentgenologyin
April 1994.(Courtesy of William Wagle, M.D.)(continues)