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High resolution CT scan of an Egyptian child mummy. For 75 years, this child mummy resided in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, Calif., its body unseen by human eyes, its story a mystery. In 2005, a team of researchers joined computer engineer Paul Brown of Stanford University School of Medicine, in unraveling the threads of this mystery using the latest in imaging technology -- an AXIOM Siemens scanner, one of only five CT scanners in the world capable of producing such high-resolution images. Stanford Radiology's state-of-the-art scanner generated 2 Dimensional slices as thin as 200 microns -- several times thinner than the 750-micron slices used to create the popular 3 Dimensional visualization of King Tutankhamen's mummy. In fact, at 92 GB, Stanford Radiology's child mummy scans generated nearly 35 times more information than the scans conducted on King Tut. Equipped with the most detailed 3 D models ever created of a mummy, the team of experts reconstructed 60,000 exceptionally high-resolution 2 D scans to help them give life to this mummy without disturbing its delicate form. The result is the highest quality interactive visualization of a mummy ever seen. Analysis of the data revealed that the 2,000-year-old mummy is the remains of a 4 to 5-year-old girl who, researchers concluded, likely died unexpectedly from an infectious disease.
