About 3,500 years ago, Egyptian ruler King Amenhotep I (ah-muhn-HOH-tep) died, and his body was mummified. Priests removed his organs and wrapped his body in cloth to prepare him for the afterlife. Last year, scientists saw the insides of the ancient mummy. But they didn’t remove any wrappings!
SAHAR SALEEM
King Amenhotep I ruled Egypt from 1525 to 1504 B.C. Researchers made this 3-D scan of his mummy’s mask and skeleton in 2021.
Surprisingly, CT scans showed the king’s dried out brain at the back of his skull. Typically, the brain was removed when mummifying a body.
Sahar Saleem, a researcher at Cairo University in Egypt, wanted to learn what Amenhotep I looked like and how he died. But she didn’t want to unwrap the mummy, which would damage it. So she used a machine called a CT scanner to create 3-D images of Amenhotep I’s body. This machine uses invisible waves of energy called X-rays to take thousands of pictures of the remains under the wrappings. A 3-D picture forms when the images are combined. Saleem revealed Amenhotep I had an oval face and healthy teeth and wore a golden belt.
Studying this mummy meant a lot to Saleem. “As an Egyptian, I had the honor to examine my royal ancestor,” she says.
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