Cops want to know if someone was spending the money of mummified woman (sfgate.com)

"Police are investigating the financial history of a woman whose mummified body was found in a Piedmont home, in hopes of learning whether someone has been illegally spending her money, authorities said Thursday. Although police have not confirmed the woman's identity, she is believed to be Patricia Bostrom, the owner of the home, whom neighbors said they had not seen in up to five years. The Alameda County coroner has not determined a cause of death, but said the woman's body showed no signs of injury. Police said they have interviewed a "person of interest" in the case, a woman who was picked up at the house Wednesday. Neighbors identified her as Bostrom's daughter, Nancy Bostrom. They said she had lived for a time in the two-story house at Highland and Blair avenues, but that she had said she and her mother were moving to Alameda. The mummified body was found in the unlocked house Tuesday, after family friends went to police asking them to do a welfare check. Patricia Bostrom, born in 1922, was a widow whose husband died in 1984, according to neighbors and public records...."

'Beamline' x-ray--brighter than sun--to analyze mummies, sarcophagi, and statues from ancient Egypt (telegraph.co.uk)

"The new equipment, known as a beamline, will allow scientists and archaeologists to see through large solid objects to analyze their composition and how they were made, according to the Times. Three of the British Museum's Ancient Egyptian statues will be among the first objects studied with the Joint Engineering, Environmental and Processing (Jeep) beamline, which is based at the Diamond Light Source facility in in Oxfordshire. "This will help to answer questions about the technology and materials used to produce the statues as well as provide information on how they were modified during 19th-century restoration," Janet Ambers of the British Museum told the newspaper. "We are very excited about having access to this tool because it will allow us to look at our artifacts in a completely new way." Jen Hiller, a scientist who has worked with the Jeep beamline, said it would allow archaeologists to reveal the secrets of ancient artifacts in a "non-invasive" way. The other powerful X-ray based at the Diamond Light Source can only analyze smaller objects. "Never before has it been possible to scan and image such large relics with such precision," she said. Of the British Museum project, she added: "It might give us the chance to look at the contents. The Egyptians used to stash things inside their statues. We also get very fragile inner sarcophagi or mummy wrappings. "The JEEP beamline uses intense rays of synchrotron light produced by the Diamond Light Source, a £260m research facility based near Didcot in Oxfordshire that opened in 2007...."

Exhibit of Lenin's mummy to be closed for two months (rian.ru)

"The mausoleum at Red Square, where the embalmed corpse of Vladimir Lenin is housed, will be closed for two months for maintenance works on Monday. Lenin's mausoleum, a major tourist attraction in the heart of Moscow, closes periodically to give Lenin a bath in a special embalming compound and change his clothes. The mausoleum last closed on February 18 last year. Regular checks are carried out of Lenin's body and the cost of preserving the body is several millions of rubles a year. Russian scientists say he could be preserved for another 100 years. "We have retained our unique methods and know-how," said Valery Bykov, the director of the Scientific Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Herbs. "The West has only temporary embalmment." The body of the Russian communist leader has been on public display in a glass case since his death in 1924, although his organs, including his brain, were removed during the autopsy. An opinion poll has shown that two-thirds of Russians believe that the embalmed body of the architect of the 1917 Russian Revolution should be removed from its mausoleum on Red Square and buried...."

Alarm bells for Iran’s salt mummies (tehrantimes.com)

"The ancient Iranian “salt men” are in critical condition. All six of the salt men, known as Iranian mummies, were discovered at the Chehrabad Salt Mine in the Hamzehlu region near Zanjan over the past 12 years, the Persian service of CHN reported on Wednesday. Studies on the Fourth Salt Man, kept at Zanjan’s Zolfaqari Museum, indicate that the body is 2000 years old and he was 15 or 16 years old at the time of death. Three other salt men are also kept at the museum. The plexiglass cases designed for these mummies are not hermetically sealed. Changes in air temperature and pressure have created cracks in the cases, allowing bacteria and insects to enter and damage the mummies. It is still not clear when the other salt men lived, but archaeologists estimate that the First Salt Man lived about 1700 years ago and died sometime between the ages of 35 and 40. He is currently on display in a glass case at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran. The Sixth Salt Man was left in-situ due to the dearth of equipment necessary for its preservation in Iran. “The cases designed for the salt men are not standard at all,” director of the archaeological exactions at the Chehrabad Salt Mine Abolfazl Aali said. “There are problems with all the cases. A number of valves were installed in the Fourth Salt Man’s case to control air humidity inside the covering. However the crack made them useless,” he added. “No external change of the salt men has been observed since they have been unearthed, but the major damage, not visible to the naked eye, is caused by bacteria that invade the internal organs, something that we would be unaware of by casual observation,” Aali explained. The plexiglass cases have designed and made under the supervision of Manijeh Hadian, an expert from the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research (ICAR). “The most well-equipped case was the one made for the Fourth Salt Man, but it was only to be used as a temporary covering for the mummy,” Hadian noted. "

A Mummy's Life (archaeology.org)

"Around 800 B.C., a wealthy Egyptian priestess named Meresamun served the god Amun in the monumental Temple of Karnak at Thebes. Her primary duties were to play percussion, string, and wind instruments that pleased and soothed him, and to sing hymns that praised his name. When she died, her body was mummified and sealed in a skintight coffin of cartonnage (layers of linen and plaster), which had been lavishly painted with her idealized likeness and images to ensure a successful journey to the afterlife. Among other motifs, there are garlands of flowers, a reference to regeneration; a sun disk hovering above a falcon, both symbols of rebirth; the four sons of the god Horus, protectors of the viscera that were removed from her body; and two jackals representing the god Wepwawet, "opener of the way" to the necropolis. The mummy was purchased in 1920 by University of Chicago archaeologist James Henry Breasted and has been in the Oriental Institute Museum's collection ever since. The fragile coffin was never opened and the body never unwrapped because generations of curious curators couldn't bring themselves to destroy the beautiful decorations. But recent analysis on a state-of-the-art Philips 256-slice iCT scanner is now allowing experts to examine Meresamun as never before. The results of the study, along with ground-breaking research on the role of priestess-musicians in the temple and at home, are the subjects of the museum's current exhibition, The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt...."

Ancient Egyptian temple singer Meresamun stars in new exhibit at Oriental Institute Museum (chronicle.uchicago.edu)

"Visitors will come face to face with a newly drawn image of an ancient Egyptian singer-priestess named Meresamun in a new exhibition at the Oriental Institute Museum. From the instruments she played to details about her health, the exhibition, “The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt,” will provide a personal look into Meresamun’s life. Details about her health, as revealed in CT scans using the latest equipment, help tell her life story. “In a virtual way, people will be able to meet this remarkable woman and, through her eyes, learn what it was like to live in Egypt 2,800 years ago,” said Emily Teeter, Research Associate at the Oriental Institute and curator of the exhibition. “We will be able to ‘recreate’ the life of an Egyptian in a way no one has attempted before.” The exhibition will be on display at the Oriental Institute Museum from Tuesday, Feb. 10 through Sunday, Dec. 6. The centerpiece of the show is a brightly decorated coffin that contains the body of a woman who lived in Thebes (modern Luxor) in southern Egypt about 800 B.C. A brief inscription on the coffin records her name and says that she served as a singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun. Such singers were elite priestess-musicians who accompanied the High Priest as he performed rituals before the god Amun...."

3-D images reveal (and preserve) mummy unseen for 3,000 years (dotmed.com)

"Stunning 3D images reveal a mummy that has been sealed in a coffin for more than 3,000 years thanks to a cutting-edge medical scanner developed by Philips. The elaborately decorated coffin of the Egyptian woman, Meresamun, who was believed to be a priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800 BC, has remained intact and completely closed as curators at the University of Chicago's Oriental Museum, where she has been for more than 80 years, have been reluctant to examine her further and risk destroying the beautiful decorations. Now, thanks to the latest in computed tomography (CT) scanning technology, which is used to help diagnose and treat disease, researchers have been able for the first time to show the world remarkable 3D images of a woman who lies preserved inside the beautifully painted casket. Using a Philips 256-slice Brilliance iCT scanner they were able to collect thousands of images from which they have been able to create highly detailed 3D pictures without exposing the fragile remains to the elements. The technology enabled researchers to "see through" the casket to the mummy, still wrapped in her layers of linen bandages. The scanner is able to "peel" each layer away to reveal her skeleton, including what appear to be stones in her eye sockets, her remaining internal organs and give vital clues about how she lived. Markings on the coffin also suggest other important facts about her life...."

More information about the exhibit

Egyptian pyramid had its own afterlife (latimes.com) 

"In Egypt, apparently even pyramids can be recycled. Archaeologists from the country's Supreme Council of Antiquities said this week that they had discovered a cache of 30 mummies dating from the country's 26th Dynasty in a tomb constructed during the 6th Dynasty nearly 2,000 years earlier. The 26th Dynasty was the last period of rule by Egyptian pharaohs before the country was conquered by the Persians and other foreigners, a time when it was becoming more difficult for rulers to muster the manpower necessary for more grandiose burial sites. The 6th Dynasty pyramid is actually a mastaba tomb -- a simpler precursor to a pyramid -- of a man named Sennedjem. It is located in Saqqara, about 12 miles south of Cairo, the final resting place of most of the Egyptian rulers who lived in the Old Kingdom capital of Memphis. The new cache was discovered at the end of a 36-foot shaft drilled into the side of the tomb during the 26th Dynasty. Zahi Hawass, head of the council and director of the expedition, said the team had found 24 mummies in niches along the walls of the chamber and on shelves along one wall. Some of the mummies were of children and one was of a dog. All were badly decomposed, indicating that they had not been adequately prepared for burial...."

Archaeologists find rare intact mummy in chamber (msnbc.com) 

"Egyptian archaeologists found a rare intact mummy dating to pharaonic times when they opened a sealed limestone sarcophagus on Wednesday in the shadow of the world's oldest standing step pyramid at Saqqara. The well-preserved mummy, which escaped plunder by thieves in ancient times, could contain scores of gold amulets in the folds of its linen wrappings, Egypt's chief archeologist Zahi Hawass said. "It is a typical mummy of the 26th dynasty...This mummy should contain amulets, golden amulets, to help the deceased go to the afterlife," Hawass told reporters after ascending from the mummy's burial chamber, accessible only by a rope pulley. "To find an intact mummy inside a limestone sarcophagus is not common. It's rare. It's very rare," he said. Archaeologists found the ancient mummy when they removed the lid of its sarcophagus deep in a burial chamber in the desert on the western side of Saqqara, about 20 km (12 miles) south of Cairo. Thirty other mummies were also found in the same room. The 26th dynasty ruled Egypt from about 664 to 525 BC, immediately before Persians occupied the area. Hawass said the mummy found in the sarcophagus, believed to be the original owner of the burial room, would undergo scans to determine if it did contain amulets...."

Chamber of mummies found in Egypt (bbc.co.uk)

"Egyptian archaeologists have found more than 20 mummies in a burial chamber dating back at least 2,600 years. Eight wooden and stone sarcophagi were also discovered during the excavations at the Saqqara site, said Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist. One limestone sarcophagus sealed with plaster is thought to be more than 4,000 years old. Despite decades of excavations at the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo, new finds are frequently made. Correspondents say it is rare for such an intact burial site to be unearthed. The mummies, 22 of which were found in niches along a wall, were in a tomb dating to 640BC, Mr Hawass said. One wooden sarcophagus had not been opened since ancient times, though one official said ancient grave robbers had probably reached it first, according to a government statement. A mummy was found in the only sarcophagus to have been opened so far, and archaeologists said they were expecting to find more mummies in the others. Mr Hawass has said that some 70% of Egypt's ancient monuments remain buried...."

Oldest human hair found in fossilized hyena poop  (nationalgeographic.com)

"The oldest known human hairs could be the strands discovered in fossil hyena poop found in a South African cave, a new study hints. Researchers discovered the rock-hard hyena dung near the Sterkfontein caves, where many early human ancestor fossils have been found. Each white, round fossil turd, or coprolite, is roughly 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) across. They were found embedded in sediments 195,000 to 257,000 years old. Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9,000-year-old Chilean mummy. The sizes and shapes of the coprolites and their location suggest they came from brown hyenas, which still live in the region's caves today. It's not clear which species the newfound human hairs are from, since the human fossil record for this time span is exceedingly limited, the researchers say. But the hairs' age "covers just before when we think modern humans emerged, and overlaps with the existence and end of Homo heidelbergensis," said study co-author Lucinda Backwell, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. "The hairs could belong to either of them, or of course to [a species] not yet recognized," added Backwell, whose findings appeared online January 31 in the Journal of Archaeological Science...."

Link to article abstract

Green amulet stones protected Egyptian child mummies (discovery.com)

"A rare mummified child from the early period of Egyptian history was discovered buried with a bright green amulet stone once believed to hold magical powers, according to a new study. The finds help to explain why hieroglyphics and historical texts record that Egyptian children wore green eye makeup. It also adds to the growing body of evidence that ancient Egyptians thought color itself held sacred energy that could help or hurt individuals. Lead author Raffaella Bianucci explained that the first Egyptian colored amulets occurred as early as the predynastic Badarian period, from 4500 to 3800 B.C. The recently analyzed child mummy, containing the remains of a 15- to 18-month-old toddler, dates to 4,700 years ago. "Even in limited forms and materials, these earliest amulets give a good indication of the dangerous forces that the early Egyptians felt were present in their world and needed to be harnessed by magical means," said Bianucci, a scientist in the Department of Animal and Human Biology at Via Accademia Albertina in Turin, Italy. She and her colleagues first examined the child's remains, which were wrapped in linen bandages. Immunological evidence determined that the youngster died from an acute malarial infection. The researchers then turned their attention to a fossilized leather bag tied with linen twine, which was wrapped in the bandages with the mummy. Two stones were found within the bag. The researchers focused on a bright green one, found poking through the fossilized leather. Powerful X-rays, as well as scanning electron microscope analysis, revealed that the stone was chrysocolla, or hydrated copper silica, according to the paper that will be published in the March issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. To this day, chrysocolla is valued as an ornamental stone that, in its bluer forms, is sometimes confused with turquoise...."

New forensic technique helps identify mummified victims in Juarez (kvia.com)

"A new forensic tool that helps identify unknown victims is giving new hope to families searching for missing relatives. It's one of the biggest jobs at the busy Juarez crime lab: identifying victims. This past decade, the city has had to bury hundreds of John and Jane Doe's. Forensic experts say the remains of victims are mummified because they are often exposed to the harsh desert climate for days before they are found. Dr. Alejandro Hernandez, who works at the Juarez Crime Lab, developed a new "re-hydration" technique to recover crucial evidence. "I was surprised but a little scared at the same time," he said, recalling the first time he saw the transformation of cardboard-like tissue into a natural skin texture. The lab began by recovering fingerprints and now it can restore other identifying marks on the body such as moles, scars, and tattoos. In one case, a woman's entire face was reconstructed. Officials say it's a promising development for families searching for missing loved ones...."

French experts to study Yemeni mummy (sabanews.net)

"Two French experts are to check up some samples of mummy in Sana'a University, Sana'a National Museum and Mummy Center in al-Mahweet, chairman of General Organization for Antiquities and Museums Abdullah BaWazir.... BaWazir said that experts, a professor of history at French Poutier University and a professor of anthropology at Paris Human Bing Museum, would start next Saturday to check up samples of mummy in antiquities section in Sana'a University, Sana'a National Museum, Shoa'ab cemetery, and national center for mummy which was being set up in al-Mahweet governorate...."

Review of Atlanta's King Tut exhibit (annistonstar.com)

"Mummies, death masks, dung beetles — even a coffin for a cat … in many ways, Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharoahs is an exhibit tailor-made for children. The blockbuster exhibit, at the Atlanta Civic Center through May, features more than 130 objects covering 2,000 years of Egyptian history. More than 50 of those objects, including jewelry, games and furniture, are from the tomb of the Boy King himself. Here are some tips on how to make the most of taking children to see the exhibit...."