Oriental Institute Special Exhibit: Meresamun

A reminder about this great exhibit at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, which I saw featured in an article earlier today in The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel. February 10 - December 6, 2009 The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt focuses on the life of a priestess-musician in Egypt in about the year 800 BC. The exhibit’s centerpiece is the coffin and mummy of Meresamun, who probably lived in Thebes. The exhibit illustrates the duties of a temple singer and explores what her life was like inside, as well as outside, the temple. Her temple duties are illustrated by a selection of objects she would have used, including a sistrum, an ivory clapper, a harp, and cult vessels [11394, 10578]. Other objects document ritual activities that she would have participated in, such as animal cults and the consultation of divine oracles. The section of the exhibit on her life outside the temple includes an examination of the social and legal rights of women in ancient Egypt and what professions were open to them. Examples of dishes, jewelry, and cosmetic vessels show what sort of objects could have been in her home. Religious rituals enacted within the home are illustrated by artifacts related to ancestor cults as well as amulets and other objects believed to improve fertility. In preparation for the exhibit, the mummy of Meresamun was examined with a Philips Healthcare Brilliance iCT 256-slice scanner at the University of Chicago Hospital. The thousands of CT scans obtained during the procedure allowed the creation of detailed 3-D images and reconstructions. Linking that data with forensic science has allowed specialists to recreate Meresamun’s original appearance. The fully illustrated exhibit catalog is available here. The exhibit is supported by Exelon and Philips Healthcare. More about Meresamun! Gallery Exhibit Computer Kiosk Presentation Video of Meresamun’s CT examination, September 2008 Visit Meresamun’s Facebook page Archaeology Magazine’s Meresamun site Interactive – Meresamun: A Life in Layers Pressroom: Worldwide coverage of Meresamun Oriental Institute Press Release New feature: View CT scans of Meresamun--> The Oriental Institute Museum is located at 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago. The Museum is open Tuesday, Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m. For information, call (773) 702-9514.

Face to Face with Priestess Meresamun

Modern technology at work! Here are two renditions (center and right) of what Meresamun may have looked like, based upon CT scans of her mummy. The image on the left is from her mummy cartonnage case and at the time of Meresamun's death, would not have been intended to be a true representation of what she looked like (that happened much later in Egyptian history) but was, rather, an idealized image. Getting By On Her Looks "Priestess of Amun" by Eti Bonn-Muller Using crystal-clear 3-D images from Meresamun's historic scans, two forensic artists reconstruct the face of a 2,800-year-old Egyptian priestess She was more than just a pretty face. The ancient Egyptian Meresamun, who lived around 800 B.C., was a working girl, a priestess-musician who served Amun, the preeminent deity of Thebes. Her mummified remains, sealed 2,800 years ago in a skintight coffin of cartonnage (layers of linen and plaster), were examined by researchers at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute in September 2008 using the latest in CT scanning technology, a "256-slice" machine that produced startlingly vivid images. For months, she has since been the immensely popular subject of the Oriental Institute Museum's exhibition, The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt. Now, the headline-making CT images have helped two individuals--each working separately with 3-D STL (stereolithography) images of Meresamun's skull produced from the scans, but using different techniques--reconstruct Meresamun's face. Michael Brassell is a Baltimore-based forensic artist for NamUs (pronounced "name us"), the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System established by the National Institute of Justice. He created traditional hand-drawn pencil sketches (digitally colored for an "artsy" effect), using the exact same methods he employs when helping the police track down a cold-case victim. Josh Harker, a forensic artist who lives in Chicago and was originally trained as a sculptor, worked digitally, leveraging the latest software and imaging technology. "I was delighted to have two very different techniques," says Emily Teeter, an Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute Museum and curator of the Meresamun exhibition. "How often do you look at a police sketch in the paper--of some creep or some unfortunate missing person--and say, 'Yeah, I wonder if they really looked like that?' But there is a lot of similarity between the two reconstructions." The main differences, she points out, are in the shapes of the chin and the nose. "But they both have the same overbite, very much the same cheekbones, and the same shape of the eyes." Rest of article at Archaeology (online).

The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt

Mr. Don and I didn't have a chance to get to Chicago to see this exhibit at the Oriental Institute when he was here earlier this month (for our trip to New York to celebrate Goddesschess' 10th anniversary). Perhaps we can zip down on the train for a day in August before we leave for Las Vegas (we'll be celebrating my birthday - hmmm, let's see, I think I'll be 39 again, in Las Vegas, where I celebrated it 10 years ago). The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt February 10 - December 6, 2009 See the Archaeological Institute's online article on Meresamun by Emily Teeter.

Meresamun, a Priestess of Amun

A Mummy's Life Volume 62 Number 2, March/April 2009 by Eti Bonn-Muller Around 800 B.C., a wealthy Egyptian priestess named Meresamun served the god Amun in the monumental Temple of Karnak at Thebes. Her primary duties were to play percussion, string, and wind instruments that pleased and soothed him, and to sing hymns that praised his name. When she died, her body was mummified and sealed in a skintight coffin of cartonnage (layers of linen and plaster), which had been lavishly painted with her idealized likeness and images to ensure a successful journey to the afterlife. Among other motifs, there are garlands of flowers, a reference to regeneration; a sun disk hovering above a falcon, both symbols of rebirth; the four sons of the god Horus, protectors of the viscera that were removed from her body; and two jackals representing the god Wepwawet, "opener of the way" to the necropolis. The mummy was purchased in 1920 by University of Chicago archaeologist James Henry Breasted and has been in the Oriental Institute Museum's collection ever since. The fragile coffin was never opened and the body never unwrapped because generations of curious curators couldn't bring themselves to destroy the beautiful decorations. But recent analysis on a state-of-the-art Philips 256-slice iCT scanner is now allowing experts to examine Meresamun as never before. The results of the study, along with ground-breaking research on the role of priestess-musicians in the temple and at home, are the subjects of the museum's current exhibition, The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt. Last September, Egyptologist Emily Teeter, curator of the exhibition, and a team of conservators placed Meresamun's coffin, secured by foam wedges and linen straps, into a rectangular wooden crate. On the outside, the exhibition designers had painted black wedjat eyes, protective symbols often depicted on ancient Egyptian coffins, believed to allow the mummy to see out. "We didn't want her to feel boxed up," says Teeter, a slender woman with a silvery bob. Then they loaded the mummy into a truck and drove across campus to the University of Chicago Hospital's emergency room. They placed the crate on a gurney and wheeled it into the CT suite, where physicians routinely take X-ray cross sections of tissue to diagnose cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other medical conditions. Nearly 40 people crammed into the hospital's CT suite to witness the historic scans: sales reps from Philips, two film crews, radiologists, nurses, security guards, and museum specialists. "Oh, my God, it was exciting for everybody!" recalls Geoff Emberling, director of the Oriental Institute Museum. Eti Bonn-Muller is ARCHAEOLOGY's Managing Editor. Emily Teeter gives a brief overview of what the Egyptian priestess' life would have been like, as part of comprehensive coverage of the priestess at Archaeology Magazine: The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt by Emily Teeter How an Egyptian Mummy Winds Up in Chicago by Eti Bonn-Muller The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is hosting a special exhibit of Meresamun February 10 - December 6, 2009.

New Scanning Technology Yields Fab Results

Story from the Telegraph.co.uk Images of 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy revealed by scanner Spectacular images from within the unopened casket of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy have been revealed using a hi-tech hospital scanner. Last Updated: 11:48PM GMT 08 Feb 2009 The elaborately decorated coffin contains the wrapped remains of Meresamun, a woman believed to have been a singer-priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800 BC. Experts do not want to disturb the casket, which has remained sealed since Meresamun was laid to rest almost 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. But now cutting edge X-ray technology has allowed scientists to peer through the coffin and obtain astonishing 3D images of the mummy, still wrapped in her linen bandages. A state-of-the-art computed tomography CT scanner was used to peel away the layers and reveal Meresamun's skeleton. The mummy's remaining internal organs can be seen, as well as what appear to be stones placed in her eye sockets. Egyptologist Dr Emily Teeter, from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum, where a new exhibition featuring the mummy and CT images opens tomorrow, said: "It is so exciting to be able to see this. The mummy is still in the coffin. It is like having X-ray eyes to see the relationship between the coffin, the wrappings and amount of linen used." Meresamun's identity is unclear. Her name, shown in an inscription on the casket, means "She Lives for Amun" (an Egyptian god). According to the inscription she served as a "Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amun", one of a number of priestess-musicians who performed during rituals dedicated to the god. Meresamun was one of the higher ranking "interior" singers, some of whom served members of the Egyptian ruling family. The scans suggest she was about five foot five inches tall and aged in her late 20s or early 30s when she died. She was an attractive woman with wide-set eyes, a symmetrical face, prominent cheekbones and a long neck. The cause of Meresamun's death is unknown, and all the more mysterious since she appears to have been in exceptionally good health. The state of her bones shows she enjoyed a nutritious diet and active lifestyle. Although she bore no signs of dental disease, her teeth were worn down by the grit in Egyptian bread, which was made from stone-ground flour. Early analysis suggests she had not given birth to any children. The sealed casket was bought in Egypt in 1920 by James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute. The coffin, made from cartonnage - a type of papier mache composed of layers of fabric, glue and plaster - is colourfully painted with pictures of gods and symbols and hieroglyphics relating to life after death. Earlier attempts to carry out scans of the casket in 1989 and 1991 produced disappointing fuzzy images. The new images were obtained using a Philips Brilliance iCT scanner, one of the most advanced available. The machine scanned 100 cross-section slices of the mummy per second, generating 30 billion individual measurements and producing 1,000 times more raw data than was collected in 1991. US radiologist Professor Michael Vannier, who led the scanner team, said: "The iCT scanner allows us to perform detailed analysis of very complex anatomy within seconds. "The pictures of the mummy are breathtaking, we could see subtle things - wear patterns on the teeth, a clear view of the embalming incision, precise indications of her age - that were not apparent before."

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Also see a full story on the scan at Archaeology Magazine online. dondelion and I were pleased to attend a lecture by Dr. Emily Teeter at the Milwaukee Public Museum - 2004 or 2005, forget exactly when, in conjunction with the mega-hit exhibit "The Quest for Immortality." We were both impressed with her lecture and her obvious depth of knowledge, but she was very approachable.