From Lab to Life: New Findings from Dead Mummies

One of the proven ‘formulas’ for creative innovation is: X + Y. That is – take two powerful technologies or innovations that are seemingly unconnected, and combine them, to make 1+1 = 1,000, say.

Computer tomography (CT) scans the human body to detect pathology. 3D printing makes physical objects out of computer scans.

Writing in the New York Times, Emily Baumgaertner Nunn (Feb. 3) describes, in a fascinating piece, how medical experts used a CT scan of a 2,200-year-old Egyptian mummy, called Nes-Min, 40-year-old, who lived around 190 BCE, fed it to a medical-grade 3D printer, and created life-size reproductions of its spine, skull and hips.

The mummy, that of an Egyptian priest, was used to scan 320 different cross-section images, in ‘slices’. The slices were then stacked together “like a loaf of bread” to form 3-D digital models that could be printed.

“Researchers had previously noticed, for example, that Nes-Min, who they believe lived into his 40s, had broken bones along his right rib cage, all of which had healed, suggesting some type of traumatic fall or attack he had survived earlier in life. They also believed he suffered from chronic lower back pain, given that he had a collapsed lumbar vertebra. Dr. Summer Decker, U. of Southern California, a human anatomist who studies prehistorical remains, and and James Schanandore discovered possible burr holes in the spine, which suggested to them that he had most likely undergone some type of back surgery.”

Dr. Decker observed that it was interesting “to see some of the same diseases that our modern populations have”. Like a slipped disk. The surgery was similar to trephination, which is surgery to relieve pressure on the brain by drilling a small hole in the skull. Sounds to me very advanced, for medical science 2,200 years old!