Click photo to enlarge
Dave Wright, the Otago Museum's collections, assets and
research director, examines an Egyptian mummy, some of
whose secrets will be revealed later this month. The mummy
is in the foreground, with its ornate coffin lid sitting
beside it. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.
However the Otago Museum's bandage-swathed mummy may have
looked 2300 years ago, it certainly wasn't like film star
Elizabeth Taylor.
But Taylor's memorable portrayal of Cleopatra in the movie of
the same name has left its mark, Dave Wright, the museum's
collections, assets and research director, said yesterday -
so much so that many people think any female Egyptian mummy
would look like her.
The museum will reveal more of its mummy's secrets at its
"Egypt Unwrapped" day on January 28.
A non-intrusive CT scan of the mummy at Dunedin Hospital in
2000, which was used to create a three- dimensional computer
model, showed the mummified woman was not exactly a
raven-haired beauty when she died.
She had only six teeth and was likely to have been racked
with pain from severe gum disease, including abscesses.
She was aged about 35 - at a time when many people did not
live much beyond 40 - and is believed to have been
middle-class.
Carbon-dating of linen from the mummy's wrappings and other
analysis shows she lived during the Ptolemaic period (323BC
to 30BC).
The mummy was bought in Egypt by Dunedin businessman and
philanthropist Bendix Hallenstein and given to the museum in
1893.
On the Egypt theme day, museum visitors will see what
University of Otago forensic specialists and others have done
to reconstruct a facial likeness using only the skull of an
unidentified person.
Late last year, they used the 3D computer model of the
mummy's skull to cast an exact copy in resin.
This will be displayed, along with two plaster heads cast
from it.
They will be covered in clay, with a computer program used to
calculate facial soft-tissue depths on the face and head.
One head will be painted with skin-like tones to give an
impression - believed to be about 95% accurate - of the
Egyptian woman's appearance.
This Saturday, the museum will also launch a contest
encouraging the public to draw their predicted likeness of
her.
Mr Wright said the project was applying science to the
mysteries of the past.
"There's a hint of seeking the unknown."
