THE ANATOMICAL RECORD 298:933–934 (2015)
Unwrapping the Anatomy of Mummies JEFFREY T. LAITMAN* Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York
Let’s face it, who amongst us has not been fascinated by mummies sometime in their lives. For me, I can remember my first, riveting attraction. It came on a late Friday night when I was about six, sitting alone in our living room in Brooklyn (hey, why was I alone?; my parents probably left me to go next door to Grandma’s, something they’d be arrested for today!) I was planted in front of our old RCA black and white TV (try explaining this to one of our HD/3D/surround-sound brats today) watching a special showing on Channel 5 of the “Horror Movie of the Week.” I made sure to switch channels from “Death Valley Days” (sponsored by 20 Mule Team Borax; later Ronald Reagan hosted this show and hawked their product, “Boraxo”) to my channel so as to not miss anything. Had my potato-stix and Pez ready to eat, my Dodger cap on and framed picture of President Eisenhower next to me for protection (Presidents meant a lot more to kids in those days then they do today). With lights out and flickering TV in front of me I can still feel the eerie, intriguing, alluring, fascinating, frightening images of “The Mummy” (Freund, 1932) gradually appear on the screen. When coupled with the raspy, somewhat lisping tones of the great Boris Karloff, Prince Imhotep gradually came back to the world of the living after the words from the Scroll of Thoth were unintentionally read aloud. Seeing Jaws jump out of the water in 1975 paled in comparison with the first view of Imhotep, mummified great Prince of Egypt, take his first steps in over 2700 years. I spilled my Pez and knocked over the Prez’s picture trying to quickly hug my Smokey-the-Bear teddy (hey, I was six!) My future-anatomist’s mind raced faster then Jackie Robinson stealing home. What was under those bandages? Would he fall apart when they were removed? What actually did they do to him in the few scenes that only lightly hinted at his organs being removed? How did the Priests know what to do? What did they actually put in those sealed urns? And what about his lover, the beautiful Princess Ankh-es-en-amon, what did they take out/or leave in her? How did these mummies survive for thousands of years? Jumping ahead almost 50 years, I’m in the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology of the great University of Pennsylvannia in Philadelphia. I’ve been “banished” here while my wife and I brought our first born to his first day as an undergrad at Penn and I unintentionally embarrassed him, so I was sent off main campus. (The Dean came by to say hello, saw my wife wearing a Penn Alumni shirt, and said how nice that a mother and son are both here. My son later went ballistic saying, “I don’t want people to think I got in because of my mother!” The perfect father, moi, C 2015 WILEY PERIODICALS, INC. V
responded: “It probably had nothing to do with Mom; maybe the fact that your grandfather, great-uncle, uncle, and eight cousins went here may have helped!” So I was sent away. To the Museum. Also, still paying for therapy.) I knew the Museum well because I had been a frequent visitor to Penn’s vaunted Anthropology Department, long one of the country’s premier centers for physical anthropology, that was located within its walls. I had often walked the halls with some of its great Professors, such as the incomparable New York City-bred Alan Mann, and his then graduate student, Janet Monge, now Curator of the Museum. As soon as I learned of my exile from central campus, I called Janet and, fortunately, she was around. We spent a terrific afternoon trolling the huge Museum, spending particular time in the halls of mummies from Egypt and areas of Asia. Janet also showed me plans for a new Mummy Exhibit that was getting underway. It was a magnificent day for me, being given an extraordinary mini-course in “Mummy-ology” by one of the great Curators of the world (she actually was chosen “Best Museum Curator” by Philadelphia Magazine, Burnley, 2014). As we walked down the sarcophagi-clad corridors on our way out, a lightbulb lit in my mind: “Hey, Janet” I asked “I have an idea that I think might be fun. Want to put your varied anthropological, anatomical, archeological training to a new task that would reach far beyond even the vast halls of the Museum?” “Sounds intriguing,” Philadelphia’s best curator responded. “How about us doing a Special Issue on Mummies for The Anatomical Record? We could literally unrap and expose the anatomy within and how it came to be from a host of new directions.” “Cool! I’m in,” she enthusiastically answered. . . and our project began. While our idea was hatched on that day, surrounded by sarcophagi and urns at Penn’s “Mummy Museum,” as locals often refer to it, our baby would have a lengthy gestation over the next 5 years as we gradually peered deeper and deeper into the world of mummies and expanded the scope of our project. Our official launching came in 2011, with a Symposium at the Penn Museum
*Correspondence to: Jeffrey T. Laitman, Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Box 1007, New York, New York 10029. Fax: 212 860-1174. E-mail: [email protected] Received 25 February 2015; Accepted 26 February 2015. DOI 10.1002/ar.23128 Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary. com).
934
LAITMAN
sponsored by The Anatomical Record entitled “The Anatomy of the Mummy” that brought together many of the scientists whose work appears in this Special Issue of the same name. Open to the public, this Symposium was packed with new findings shared amongst scientists and the lay public alike. Perhaps, no one enjoyed it more than our own Editor-in-Chief, Kurt Albertine, a native Jersey-boy and former Philadelphian, who, as anyone will tell you, is a closet archeologist and paleontologist at heart (he even found his own fossil leaf; named it “albertini”). As our first authors began to draft their manuscripts, we eventually broadened our scope to include some areas not originally covered (“Mummy-world” is vast and deep) and welcomed on-board as Co-Guest Editor with Janet, Frank R€ uhli, Head of the Swiss Mummy Project and Director of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine of the University of Zurich. Frank and his team have explored mummies from locales world wide, and examined issues related to their preservation and, particularly, what they can tell us about disease in human evolution. Trained in medicine and with an interest in archeology, Frank brought his enormous energy as well as great insight and perspectives to many of the questions we wished to address. Together, these mummy-aficionados have put together a state-of-the-art exploration into the world of a mummy in our Special Issue, “The Anatomy of the Mummy.” Their goal was to do more than present mummies as items of curiosity—what, in truth, many collections, assemblages or reports have often done in the past. Rather, their mission was to expose both the detailed anatomy of a mummy in keeping with the focus and prime interests of The Anatomical Record, but also to put their structure into a broader context. The issue unwraps not only the anatomy of a mummy, but the world around it: what is a mummy, how they came to be, what is the history of mummy studies, what are the different types of mummies, what do mummies mean in different cultures, what are the cutting-edge techniques and technologies used to visualize mummies, what are the ethics involved in obtaining and exhibiting human mummified remains? The articles that deal with the topics above allow one to move well beyond simply gawking at an object shrouded in mystery and fascination. Reading these articles reveals a warm and beautiful story of cultural respect, and how our human species exhibited, and still exhibits in many parts of the world, love and adoration of their deceased through mummification. These discussions will change forever how you view a mummy, and likely offer new perspectives on how our kind can show respect, beauty, and reverence. While a number of articles explore the bioarchealogical and biocultural aspects of mummies, many explore the extraordinary diversity of human mummies from different parts of the globe. These provide us with a global tour of mummies: from the usual suspects of classical Eqypt; the famous bog mummies of Denmark; the “ice-mummies” from Greenland; those from the 18th to 19th centuries of Sicily; the famous restoration work on the mummies from Papua, New Guinea; to some of the oldest mummies in the Americas from the moun-
tains of Peru. On the anatomical side, as could be expected, are detailed examinations of traditional and newer ways to examine mummies through imaging. These include many discussions from the anatomical and radiological perspectives on what works and what does not work in getting under a mummies skin (er, bandages as it were). Some fascinating articles report on experimental work in “creating” a mummy to understand the secrets of the mummification process and differences that can be attributed to the process and to normal degradation. Paleopathology is a theme that wraps around many of the articles and, indeed, is an important focus of much of the study on mummies. In this issue, some of the articles on the Egyptian mummies shine special light on trying to uncover the diseases and pathologies that the individuals exhibited during life. These explore such interesting areas as joint disease, scoliosis, degenerative change, and markers of occupational stress in one of the first, systematic studies of orthopaedic problems in mummies. Other articles explore the use and appearance of prostheses, and still others sniff out the anatomy and change through time of the paranasal sinuses. One fascinating piece of detective work investigates the anatomy and histology—and cause of death—of a woolly mammoth from Siberia. This article is included amongst the anthropocentric focus of the issue to show how use of animal mummies can shed light on the Pleistocene paleo-environment, causes of mammoth extinction, and insights into potential interactions with other animals including human ancestors. Some months back, my wife and I were back at the Penn Museum, aforementioned son having deposited us there while he went to some frat reunion (see a pattern here?) We, naturally, gravitated to the mummies, a group I had now grown to appreciate much more fully. Funny, my eyes did not see them in the same way as I had before. Yes, fascinating as always, but not eerie or macabre or even scary. After spending years being the midwife for our Anatomical Record Symposium and Special Issue, I felt that I had become an honorary member of this mummy “club.” I experienced some of the great allure and siren’s call that infected Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of history past and Tutankhamen fame (see Ceram, 1967), and had come to view mummies in a very different way. I now felt as if it was a privilege, almost a sacred one, to enter into their world and to gain precious glimpses into their daily life and rituals. I had come a long way from that scared little kid back in Brooklyn. I was not afraid of mummies any longer. . . .except for that Imhotep fellow. Still can not watch that movie without my teddy bear nearby!
LITEARATURE CITED Burnley M. 2014. Best of philly snapshot: Janet Monge, best museum curator. Philadelphia Magazine July, 30 Issue. Ceram CW. 1967. In: Alfred AK, editor. Gods, graves, and scholars: The story of archeology. 2nd ed. New York. Freund K. 1932. The Mummy. Hollywood, CA: Universal Pictures. Monge JA, R€ uhli F. 2015. The anatomy of the mummy: mortui viventes docent – when ancient mummies speak to modern doctors. Anat Rec 298:935–940.
Unwrapping the Anatomy of Mummies JEFFREY T. LAITMAN* Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York
Let’s face it, who amongst us has not been fascinated by mummies sometime in their lives. For me, I can remember my first, riveting attraction. It came on a late Friday night when I was about six, sitting alone in our living room in Brooklyn (hey, why was I alone?; my parents probably left me to go next door to Grandma’s, something they’d be arrested for today!) I was planted in front of our old RCA black and white TV (try explaining this to one of our HD/3D/surround-sound brats today) watching a special showing on Channel 5 of the “Horror Movie of the Week.” I made sure to switch channels from “Death Valley Days” (sponsored by 20 Mule Team Borax; later Ronald Reagan hosted this show and hawked their product, “Boraxo”) to my channel so as to not miss anything. Had my potato-stix and Pez ready to eat, my Dodger cap on and framed picture of President Eisenhower next to me for protection (Presidents meant a lot more to kids in those days then they do today). With lights out and flickering TV in front of me I can still feel the eerie, intriguing, alluring, fascinating, frightening images of “The Mummy” (Freund, 1932) gradually appear on the screen. When coupled with the raspy, somewhat lisping tones of the great Boris Karloff, Prince Imhotep gradually came back to the world of the living after the words from the Scroll of Thoth were unintentionally read aloud. Seeing Jaws jump out of the water in 1975 paled in comparison with the first view of Imhotep, mummified great Prince of Egypt, take his first steps in over 2700 years. I spilled my Pez and knocked over the Prez’s picture trying to quickly hug my Smokey-the-Bear teddy (hey, I was six!) My future-anatomist’s mind raced faster then Jackie Robinson stealing home. What was under those bandages? Would he fall apart when they were removed? What actually did they do to him in the few scenes that only lightly hinted at his organs being removed? How did the Priests know what to do? What did they actually put in those sealed urns? And what about his lover, the beautiful Princess Ankh-es-en-amon, what did they take out/or leave in her? How did these mummies survive for thousands of years? Jumping ahead almost 50 years, I’m in the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology of the great University of Pennsylvannia in Philadelphia. I’ve been “banished” here while my wife and I brought our first born to his first day as an undergrad at Penn and I unintentionally embarrassed him, so I was sent off main campus. (The Dean came by to say hello, saw my wife wearing a Penn Alumni shirt, and said how nice that a mother and son are both here. My son later went ballistic saying, “I don’t want people to think I got in because of my mother!” The perfect father, moi, C 2015 WILEY PERIODICALS, INC. V
responded: “It probably had nothing to do with Mom; maybe the fact that your grandfather, great-uncle, uncle, and eight cousins went here may have helped!” So I was sent away. To the Museum. Also, still paying for therapy.) I knew the Museum well because I had been a frequent visitor to Penn’s vaunted Anthropology Department, long one of the country’s premier centers for physical anthropology, that was located within its walls. I had often walked the halls with some of its great Professors, such as the incomparable New York City-bred Alan Mann, and his then graduate student, Janet Monge, now Curator of the Museum. As soon as I learned of my exile from central campus, I called Janet and, fortunately, she was around. We spent a terrific afternoon trolling the huge Museum, spending particular time in the halls of mummies from Egypt and areas of Asia. Janet also showed me plans for a new Mummy Exhibit that was getting underway. It was a magnificent day for me, being given an extraordinary mini-course in “Mummy-ology” by one of the great Curators of the world (she actually was chosen “Best Museum Curator” by Philadelphia Magazine, Burnley, 2014). As we walked down the sarcophagi-clad corridors on our way out, a lightbulb lit in my mind: “Hey, Janet” I asked “I have an idea that I think might be fun. Want to put your varied anthropological, anatomical, archeological training to a new task that would reach far beyond even the vast halls of the Museum?” “Sounds intriguing,” Philadelphia’s best curator responded. “How about us doing a Special Issue on Mummies for The Anatomical Record? We could literally unrap and expose the anatomy within and how it came to be from a host of new directions.” “Cool! I’m in,” she enthusiastically answered. . . and our project began. While our idea was hatched on that day, surrounded by sarcophagi and urns at Penn’s “Mummy Museum,” as locals often refer to it, our baby would have a lengthy gestation over the next 5 years as we gradually peered deeper and deeper into the world of mummies and expanded the scope of our project. Our official launching came in 2011, with a Symposium at the Penn Museum
*Correspondence to: Jeffrey T. Laitman, Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Box 1007, New York, New York 10029. Fax: 212 860-1174. E-mail: [email protected] Received 25 February 2015; Accepted 26 February 2015. DOI 10.1002/ar.23128 Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary. com).
934
LAITMAN
sponsored by The Anatomical Record entitled “The Anatomy of the Mummy” that brought together many of the scientists whose work appears in this Special Issue of the same name. Open to the public, this Symposium was packed with new findings shared amongst scientists and the lay public alike. Perhaps, no one enjoyed it more than our own Editor-in-Chief, Kurt Albertine, a native Jersey-boy and former Philadelphian, who, as anyone will tell you, is a closet archeologist and paleontologist at heart (he even found his own fossil leaf; named it “albertini”). As our first authors began to draft their manuscripts, we eventually broadened our scope to include some areas not originally covered (“Mummy-world” is vast and deep) and welcomed on-board as Co-Guest Editor with Janet, Frank R€ uhli, Head of the Swiss Mummy Project and Director of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine of the University of Zurich. Frank and his team have explored mummies from locales world wide, and examined issues related to their preservation and, particularly, what they can tell us about disease in human evolution. Trained in medicine and with an interest in archeology, Frank brought his enormous energy as well as great insight and perspectives to many of the questions we wished to address. Together, these mummy-aficionados have put together a state-of-the-art exploration into the world of a mummy in our Special Issue, “The Anatomy of the Mummy.” Their goal was to do more than present mummies as items of curiosity—what, in truth, many collections, assemblages or reports have often done in the past. Rather, their mission was to expose both the detailed anatomy of a mummy in keeping with the focus and prime interests of The Anatomical Record, but also to put their structure into a broader context. The issue unwraps not only the anatomy of a mummy, but the world around it: what is a mummy, how they came to be, what is the history of mummy studies, what are the different types of mummies, what do mummies mean in different cultures, what are the cutting-edge techniques and technologies used to visualize mummies, what are the ethics involved in obtaining and exhibiting human mummified remains? The articles that deal with the topics above allow one to move well beyond simply gawking at an object shrouded in mystery and fascination. Reading these articles reveals a warm and beautiful story of cultural respect, and how our human species exhibited, and still exhibits in many parts of the world, love and adoration of their deceased through mummification. These discussions will change forever how you view a mummy, and likely offer new perspectives on how our kind can show respect, beauty, and reverence. While a number of articles explore the bioarchealogical and biocultural aspects of mummies, many explore the extraordinary diversity of human mummies from different parts of the globe. These provide us with a global tour of mummies: from the usual suspects of classical Eqypt; the famous bog mummies of Denmark; the “ice-mummies” from Greenland; those from the 18th to 19th centuries of Sicily; the famous restoration work on the mummies from Papua, New Guinea; to some of the oldest mummies in the Americas from the moun-
tains of Peru. On the anatomical side, as could be expected, are detailed examinations of traditional and newer ways to examine mummies through imaging. These include many discussions from the anatomical and radiological perspectives on what works and what does not work in getting under a mummies skin (er, bandages as it were). Some fascinating articles report on experimental work in “creating” a mummy to understand the secrets of the mummification process and differences that can be attributed to the process and to normal degradation. Paleopathology is a theme that wraps around many of the articles and, indeed, is an important focus of much of the study on mummies. In this issue, some of the articles on the Egyptian mummies shine special light on trying to uncover the diseases and pathologies that the individuals exhibited during life. These explore such interesting areas as joint disease, scoliosis, degenerative change, and markers of occupational stress in one of the first, systematic studies of orthopaedic problems in mummies. Other articles explore the use and appearance of prostheses, and still others sniff out the anatomy and change through time of the paranasal sinuses. One fascinating piece of detective work investigates the anatomy and histology—and cause of death—of a woolly mammoth from Siberia. This article is included amongst the anthropocentric focus of the issue to show how use of animal mummies can shed light on the Pleistocene paleo-environment, causes of mammoth extinction, and insights into potential interactions with other animals including human ancestors. Some months back, my wife and I were back at the Penn Museum, aforementioned son having deposited us there while he went to some frat reunion (see a pattern here?) We, naturally, gravitated to the mummies, a group I had now grown to appreciate much more fully. Funny, my eyes did not see them in the same way as I had before. Yes, fascinating as always, but not eerie or macabre or even scary. After spending years being the midwife for our Anatomical Record Symposium and Special Issue, I felt that I had become an honorary member of this mummy “club.” I experienced some of the great allure and siren’s call that infected Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of history past and Tutankhamen fame (see Ceram, 1967), and had come to view mummies in a very different way. I now felt as if it was a privilege, almost a sacred one, to enter into their world and to gain precious glimpses into their daily life and rituals. I had come a long way from that scared little kid back in Brooklyn. I was not afraid of mummies any longer. . . .except for that Imhotep fellow. Still can not watch that movie without my teddy bear nearby!
LITEARATURE CITED Burnley M. 2014. Best of philly snapshot: Janet Monge, best museum curator. Philadelphia Magazine July, 30 Issue. Ceram CW. 1967. In: Alfred AK, editor. Gods, graves, and scholars: The story of archeology. 2nd ed. New York. Freund K. 1932. The Mummy. Hollywood, CA: Universal Pictures. Monge JA, R€ uhli F. 2015. The anatomy of the mummy: mortui viventes docent – when ancient mummies speak to modern doctors. Anat Rec 298:935–940.
