January 2004


Unique collaboration reveals mummy's face after 2,200 years

For over two millennia she remained hidden beneath layers of linen bandages. Yet, without ever disturbing the wrapping, a unique collaboration involving the University of Western Ontario and other partners have built an accurate 3-D picture of this woman who died 2,200 years ago.



In the 1940s the Sulman (or Chatham) Mummy, named Cleo by the researchers studying her, was donated to the Chatham-Kent Museum. Thanks to a collaboration between scientists and a local artist, forensic facial reconstruction has been done without ever touching the skull - for the first time ever in North America.

The work, led by Western's Dr. Andrew Nelson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, involved digital data from CT scans combined with a laser 3-D virtual imaging technology to create the best view of the Egyptian mummy without disturbing the wrapping.

The virtual image of the skull was transformed into a physical model using cutting edge 3-D printing processes, normally used to design machine parts and products, to grow a plaster replica layer by layer.

Using the skull and forensic reconstruction techniques, London-based artist Christian Cardell Corbet was able to recreate her facial features, which he believes is a 90 percent accurate depiction of what she looked like when she was alive.

The amazing results were officially revealed at a press conference at the Chatham-Kent Museum on January 16.

The digital image can now be manipulated in a variety of ways for research and education; for example, using the data in a virtual reality CAVE environment, researchers can "travel" under the wrappings of the mummy, viewing at will every aspect from any angle.

Dr. Nelson notes this approach not only allows researchers to learn all they can about artifacts such as these, but also preserves them for future study.

"If we were to unwrap the mummy to get a better look at the skin, tissue, bones and so on, the process would be inherently destructive," he said. "If, ten years from now, other researchers or students want to look for something that we might have missed, they're out of luck. The evidence would have been destroyed. This way, we are using cutting-edge technology to maximize the information we can extract from this artifact while, at the same time, preserving it for future generations."

This project and its accomplishments were the product of a multi-disciplinary collaboration between research and education institutions in London and Mississauga.

In addition to expertise from Western's Bioarchaeological Research Facility and the Robarts Research Institute, St. Joseph's Health Care made the CT scans of the mummy and the National Research Council's Virtual Environment Technologies Center at the Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Institute made laser scans and rendered the virtual data. Drafting Clinic Canada Ltd. in Mississauga transformed the virtual data of the skull into a physical model.

This project involved the type of collaboration and sharing of large volumes of data that is well suited to on-line collaboration over a high-speed network, such as ORION.

In fact, Western, St. Joseph's and the Robarts Institute have all been connected to ORION since August through ORION's Pop in London at LARG*net, the area's regional advanced network.

Nelson says he can already see ORION's potential for research.

"In addition to the tremendous collaborative spirit of everyone involved, we were very fortunate to have a concentration of resources in Southwestern Ontario to draw on for this project," Nelson remarked.

"But what if your resources are scattered? For example, if you want to study human evolution and you want to see everything, then you have to go to South Africa, Kenya, all through Europe, Asia...you have to go everywhere. But if you could have all the material scanned and available in 3-D, virtually, via broadband Internet, then the potential for collaborative research and education just goes through the roof.

"Consider the resource we've created with our work on this Egyptian mummy," continued Nelson, "if you were a teacher doing a unit on ancient Egypt and you were able to reach in through broadband from a remote location and manipulate the images of this mummy in three dimensions, just think of the potential for grabbing your students' interest.

Referring to the recent looting of the Baghdad museum, Nelson lamented that we have lost a great deal of our ability to learn more about ourselves from past civilizations. "In much the same way we preserved the Sulman mummy, if there was an archive of all those artifacts before they were stolen, at least we would still have a virtual representation available for future research."

Links to more information:

Information on the Sulman Mummy Project and other links: http://hal.ssc.uwo.ca/media/release_3/index.htm.

Christian Cardell Corbet - "How did we Reconstruct the Face of the Sulman Mummy?" http://members.rogers.com/christiancardellcorbet/.

The Discovery Channel, "The Daily Planet" episode on the Sulman Mummy project: http://www.exn.ca/video/?video=exn20030507-mummy.asx.

(Images copyright 2003, 2004 - Christian Cardell Corbet, Andrew Nelson and the Chatham Kent Museum)


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