The museum's mummies: An inside view

WE APPLIED MEDICAL and scientific methodology in a study of the mummies in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York, by computed tomograph ic scanning and other radiographic methods. These noninvasive procedures al low us to "unwrap" these mummies without unwrapping them. This is, in effec t, technology transfer of routine diagnostic techniques used in medicine to Egyptology. After this noninvasive information-gathering procedure, the mu mmies are preserved intact for possible future investigations that may be m ore sophisticated and more informative. The data are presented and put into perspective by a review of pertinent literature.