The Brooklyn Museum holds 7 human and over 60 animal mummies in their collection. We know already quite a lot about their human mummies, but now Lisa Bruno tells us more about the animal mummy research project at the Museum in an informal presentation for the Museum's '1stfans'. The Brooklyn Museum's conservator Lisa Bruno talks about what an object conservator exactly is (and how to become one), the travelling exhibition 'To Live Forever' which is coming to the Brooklyn Museum February 2010 and the research the Getty Institute did on the 'red mummy' Demetrios - once thought to be a female.
Submitted by Mary Harrsch on Tue, 09/08/2009 - 11:06
A new state-of-the-art animation entitled The Mummification Process features a digital reconstruction of a 20-year-old man from the Greco-Roman period of Egypt. The animation, produced by the J. Paul Getty Museum, illustrates each step in the process from the removal of the organs (displayed as virtually disappearing without the hook through the nose procedure that some squeamish visitors may find upsetting) to the application of the distinctive red pigment to the cartonnage outer wrapping.
Highlighted Quote:
Most of the mummies you get in the end [Greco-Roman Period] are not even Egyptians
The legendary 18th dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun died tragically young – at around just 19 years of age. The period of Egyptian history in which he lived was brutal indeed, and life expectancy was woefully low. Yet he passed well before his time nonetheless, especially for a royal living in the relative lap of luxury.
Speculating as to the cause of his early demise has been a popular pursuit among scholars ever since Tut’s tomb – in which lay his perfectly undisturbed mummified corpse – was famously discovered by Howard Carter in the 1920s. Theories range from him becoming infected with a fatal pandemic said to be sweeping the region at the time, to a rare bone disorder to complications from a simple accident which primitive medical practices at the time were unable to deal with.
A research group at the University of Southern California headed by Lynn Swartz Dodd, lecturer in religion at the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, will get X-ray studies of ancient Egyptian artefacts at Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source. The particle accelerator will shed light on the make up and structure of metal swords, axes and figurines. In this video Ms Dodd - who holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures - explains how high-energy X-ray beams are used to learn more about ancient artefacts.
Using X-ray technology we can learn two important things about these artefacts:
When in 79 AD the Vesuvius errupted full force, it destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, covering them with tons of ash, rock and debris. At the same time, it left scientists with an 'instant capture of time', capturing daily life in those Roman towns. Now professor Brent Seales and his EDUCE - 'Enhanced Digital Unwrapping for Conservation and Exploration' - team will have a crack at deciphering some of the items 'preserved' due to being in the air-tight vault of ashes: two 2,000-year-old papyrus scrolls found in a villa that is thought to have belonged to Julius Caesar's father in law Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus.
When in 79 AD the Vesuvius errupted full force, it destroyed 
