By Owen
Jarus, LiveScience Contributor | LiveScience.com – Sat, Dec
15, 2012
A brain-removal tool used by ancient Egyptian embalmers has been
discovered lodged in the skull of a female mummy that dates back
around 2,400 years.
Removal of the brain was an Egyptian mummification
procedurethat became popular around 3,500 years ago and
remained in use in later periods.
Identifying the ancient tools embalmers used for brain removal is
difficult, and researchers note this is only the second time that
such a tool has been reported within a mummy's skull.
The discovery
Located between the left parietal bone and the back of the skull,
which had been filled with resin, the object was discovered in 2008
through a series of CT scans. Researchers then inserted an
endoscope (a thin tube often used for noninvasive medical
procedures) into the mummy to get a closer look and ultimately
detach it from resin to which it had gotten stuck. [See Photos of Mummy &
Brain-Removal Tool]
"We cut it with a clamp through the endoscope and then removed it
from the skull," said lead researcher Dr. Mislav ?avka, of the
University Hospital Dubrava in Zagreb Croatia, in an interview with
LiveScience.
They found themselves peering at an object more than 3 inches (8
centimeters) long that would have been used for liquefying and
removing the brain. "It almost definitely would have been used in
excerebration [brain removal] of the mummy," ?avka said.
The instrument would have been inserted through a hole punched into
the ethmoid bone near the nose. "Some parts [of the brain] would be
wrapped around this stick and pulled out, and the other parts would
be liquefied," ?avka said.
The Egyptian
mummy could then be put on its abdomen and the liquid
drained through the nose hole. "It is an error that [the] embalmers
left this stick in the skull," said ?avka, adding the tool may have
broken apart during the procedure.
This embalming accident, unfortunate for the ancient mummy, has
provided researchers with a very rare artifact. ?avka's team point
out in a paper they published recently in the journal RSNA
RadioGraphics the only other brain-removal stick found inside a
mummy's skull dates back 2,200 years.
"Probably in museums in Egypt there are many other evidences, but
they were not found inside the skull," making it tricky to identify
such artifacts as brain-removal tools, said ?avka.
The mummy is currently in the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb
Croatia and is that of a woman who died around the age of 40.
Brought to Croatia in the 19th century without a coffin, it's not
known where she was found in Egypt. Radiocarbon dating
and CT scans of the
mummy determined its date to be around 2,400 years. Her
cause of death is unknown.
New insights
The stick is quite brittle and the team could not do as thorough of
an analysis as they'd hoped. Looking at it under a microscope,
botanical experts determined the tool is made from plants in the
group Monocotyledon, which includes forms of palm and bamboo.
The most curious find came when the researchers compared their
discovery with an ancient account of brain removal made by
the Greek writer
Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. A visitor to Egypt, he
had this to say about how Egyptian brain removal worked (as
translated by A. D. Godley, Cambridge, Harvard University Press,
1920, through Perseus Digital Library):
"Having agreed on a price, the bearers go away, and the workmen,
left alone in their place, embalm the body. If they do this in the
most perfect way, they first draw out part of the brain through the
nostrils with an iron hook, and inject certain drugs into the
rest."
The recent discovery suggests an organic stick, not an "iron hook,"
was used in at least some of these procedures, possibly for
economic reasons. Researchers note that the tool found in the skull
of the other mummy, dating from 2,200 years ago, was also made of
an organic material.
"It is known that mummification was widely practiced throughout
ancient Egyptian civilization, but it was a time-consuming and
costly practice. Thus, not everyone could afford to perform the
same mummification procedure," write the researchers in their
journal article.
