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Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press. Scanning the Pharaohs: CT Imaging of the New Kingdom Royal Mummies. (2010) Paleoneurosurgical aspects of Proto-Bulgarian artificial skull deformations. Modern human babies often wear helmets, the modern equivalent of head binding, to correct the unwanted distortion.Įnchev, Y., Nedelkov, G., Atanassova-Timeva, N. In a condition known as plagiocephaly, the back of the head becomes flattened, and - as with cradleboarding - the resulting shape is typically asymmetrical because it is accidental. However, slavishly constraining babies to sleep on their backs for extended periods has had the unwelcome side-effect of deforming their heads. The pediatric community, after causing tens of thousands of needless child deaths with an ill-advised recommendation to have babies sleep on their stomachs, abruptly reversed course in the early 1990s, with beneficial results. Ironically, although the practice of head binding has widely been abandoned, an accidental type of shape modification is now becoming common. File licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Right: Image from Wikimedia Commons author Philip Pikart (own work). Researches have spent decades trying to decipher the death of Seqenenre, whose body was found in the late 19th century and had visible wounds on its face.Source: Left: image kindly provided, together with permission for use, by Elisabeth Daynès (© Sculpture Elisabeth Daynès). Their study, published in Frontiers of Medicine, also revealed bone scans showing that the pharaoh was about 40 when he died. The mummy’s “deformed hands indicate that Seqenenre may have been captured on the battlefield, and his hands were tied behind his back, preventing him from deflecting the fierce attack” on his head, the statement said.
The researchers then studied these injuries against various Hyksos weapons stored at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, including an axe, a spear and several daggers. The CT scan “revealed details of the head injuries, including wounds that had not been discovered in previous examinations and had been skilfully hidden by embalmers”, the ministry of antiquities said in a statement. Seqenenre’s body had been examined by X-ray in the 1960s, revealing head wounds adeptly concealed by embalmers and giving rise to theories that he was killed in battle or a palace assassination.īut after conducting CT scans and producing 3D images, archaeologist Zahi Hawass and Cairo University radiology professor Sahar Salim concluded that he had been killed in an “execution ceremony” after being taken prisoner on the battlefield. Seqenenre Tao II, “The Brave”, who reigned over southern Egypt, famously led troops against the Hyksos, a dynasty of west Asian origin that had taken over the Nile Delta. A hi-tech study has offered new clues about the killing of a pharaoh who ruled Egypt 3,600 years ago, according to the country’s antiquities ministry.