Ancient Egyptians who wanted to enjoy the afterlife needed the services of a skilled embalmer. But even if your relatives hired the best, that didn鈥檛 guarantee you would reach the next world suitably intact. Evidence from surviving mummies suggests some Egyptians made their final journey with a leg, a liver or other vital part missing, while others had added extras 鈥� a probe, a swab or bits of someone else鈥檚 body. Turning a corpse into a mummy fit for everlasting life took 10 weeks, and in Egypt鈥檚 climate even an embalmer with a strong stomach might be tempted to rush the job, or steal away for some fresh air at a crucial moment. If he made a few mistakes, who would know?
The embalmers who prepared the body of Nesperennub, a priest at the Temple of Khons in Karnak, were at the top of their profession. Yet even with so illustrious a client, they bungled. And no one would have been any the wiser if the British Museum hadn鈥檛 chosen Nesperennub for a ground-breaking experiment in 鈥渧irtually unwrapping鈥� a mummy.
NESPERENNUB, Beloved of the God, Opener of the Doors of Heaven, Libationer of Khons: if a dead priest needed references when he reached the place of judgement then the inscriptions on Nesperennub鈥檚 beautifully painted mummy case should see him safely into the next world. To ensure he enjoyed his new life to the full, his body was mummified, wrapped in fine linen and enclosed in a painted linen-and-plaster case, which in turn was placed in a wooden coffin before interment in his burial chamber.
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Diggers discovered Nesperennub鈥檚 tomb in the 1890s, and in 1899 the British Museum bought his intact coffin complete with unopened mummy case. Nesperennub is one of the finest of the museum鈥檚 mummies. He died at a time when the embalmer鈥檚 art had reached near perfection, and inscriptions on the coffin and at Karnak tell us exactly who he was.
Nesperennub was born in the 9th century BC into a family of Theban priests. He performed his priestly duties at the temple of the god Khons at the great religious complex at Karnak. Each morning he opened the doors of the god鈥檚 shrine to mark the start of the day鈥檚 rituals. During religious festivals, when an image of Khons was carried in procession, he walked at the god鈥檚 right hand, bearing an ostrich-feather fan.
The museum staff resisted the temptation to unwrap him to find out more, but in the 1960s Nesperennub was X-rayed and found to be a mature adult. The plates also showed a strange cap-like object tucked behind his head. Some experts suggested it might be Nesperennub鈥檚 placenta, a revered organ saved since his birth, but others were dubious. X-rays couldn鈥檛 solve the mystery: bones, organs packed in linen, and copious amounts of resin lie one over the other, making details hard to distinguish.
Two years ago, the museum finally began to unwrap its mummy 鈥� not physically but virtually, without even opening the mummy case. John Taylor, assistant keeper in the department of ancient Egypt and Sudan, teamed up with David Hughes, a specialist in visualisation technology at the UK office of Silicon Graphics (SGI) in Reading, to create a three-dimensional image of Nesperennub.
The first step was to put Nesperennub through a CT scanner at the nearby National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. At SGI, the data from 1500 images, each a slice through the mummy from chest to spine, were fed into a supercomputer and reassembled into a three-dimensional whole (New 杏吧原创, 9 March 2002, p 20). 鈥淭his allows us to cut through the block of data at any angle, not just the angle the image was captured at by the original scan,鈥� says Hughes.
In another groundbreaking innovation, SGI developed technology that allows archaeologists to explore the mummy at will, turning the body around to look from below, for instance, or fading away certain features to reveal what鈥檚 beneath. 鈥淲e can selectively take off the bandages,鈥� says Hughes. 鈥淎nd we can illuminate different bits of data with artificial lighting, almost as if we have a torch and are shining it on different parts of the body. It鈥檚 just as if you were handling a physical object.鈥�
Returning again and again to SGI鈥檚 Reality Centre theatre and donning 3D stereo glasses, Taylor and a string of experts have been piecing together a picture of Nesperennub鈥檚 life and death. The sutures of the skull, wear on the teeth and traces of arthritis in the spine suggest the priest was between 40 and 50 when he died. There is no obvious cause of death. The skull has a small round hole over the eye, perhaps the result of TB, but it was unlikely to have killed him.
For Taylor, the most extraordinary discovery concerns the mysterious cap 鈥� the alleged placenta 鈥� and it says more about the embalmers than the Priest of Khons. 鈥淣esperennub was a high-status priest, so you would expect him to have the best treatment and be treated with respect. But clearly once they got him inside the embalming tent and all his relatives had gone, they grew careless.鈥�
Nesperennub鈥檚 embalmers followed the standard procedure of the time, removing his brain by breaking the bones at the top of the nose and probing inside the skull with a metal rod. They removed internal organs through an incision in the abdomen, discarding some and preserving and wrapping others before replacing them inside the body. The heart 鈥� the seat of the soul, which would be weighed at the moment of reckoning 鈥� was usually left undisturbed. In Nesperennub鈥檚 case the embalmers failed to take good care of it. 鈥淚t鈥檚 either missing or an unrecognisable shrivelled blob,鈥� Taylor says. 鈥淓ither they did a bad job or they pulled it out altogether.鈥�
The body itself was dried by heaping on natron 鈥� a natural mix of sodium salts 鈥� and leaving it for 40 days. Finally it was coated with aromatic resin, which would help to preserve it, and wrapped in several layers of linen bandages and sheets. Among Nesperennub鈥檚 bandages were the usual charms: a scarab to protect the heart, a winged metal ornament across the chest, and a group of small amulets at his throat. On his forehead was something Taylor had never seen before 鈥� a small squiggly serpent made of a material less dense than metal but denser than flesh. Taylor suspects it is wax, a material with magical properties.
And then there was the mysterious 鈥渃ap鈥�. From the first CT images, it was obvious that this was not a placenta but an object made of clay. 鈥淚t was a very crude sort of thing. You could see bits of grit embedded in it,鈥� says Taylor. 鈥淭hen with the 3D images, it hit you immediately. It was recognisably a bowl.鈥� So what was it doing there? 鈥淚t was too rough to be a religious object put there deliberately,鈥� he says. He began to suspect it was part of the embalmers鈥� equipment.
鈥淏y adjusting the settings, we could see under the bowl 鈥� and saw something attaching it to the head that we鈥檇 not seen before. From its density it appears to be resin. Then we turned and looked at the back of the head and could see a large gunky mass of resin.鈥�
The embalmers had clearly had trouble with their resin. It had to be liquid to paint over the dried mummy, but this resin was too runny. It trickled down the sides of Nesperennub鈥檚 face and ran off the back of his head. Rather than waste such expensive material, the embalmers decided to catch the surplus in a bowl. 鈥淲e think they might have made the bowl then and there,鈥� says Taylor. 鈥淚t was moulded by hand. You can see five finger marks on it.鈥�
A re-enactment with a replica bowl, an actor and some honey to mimic resin suggests Taylor was on the right track. With the actor lying down and the bowl placed exactly as it is on the mummy, it caught the dripping honey perfectly. But why was it still there?
Another viewing provided the answer. Turning Nesperennub around to view the back of his head, Taylor spotted a big hole in the skin. The embalmers, it seemed, had left it too late to retrieve their bowl: the resin had started to solidify. 鈥淲hen they saw the bowl was stuck to the head they must have tried to prise it off,鈥� says Taylor. 鈥淭hen they tore off a lump of skin and decided it was safer to leave it and wrap him up, bowl and all.鈥�