Mummy+mia!+Scans+reveal+Egyptian+secrets

Mummy mia! Scans reveal Egyptian secrets

Before we start reading the text, what kind of text do you think it is?
 * 1) Historical
 * 2) Scientific
 * 3) Literary
 * 4) Mystery


 * 1) What kind of “secrets” could a mummy hide?
 * 2) Read paragraphs 1 and 2. What kind of information are scientists looking for? How do you think they could find it?
 * 3) Read paragraphs 3 and 4. What do you think the answer is going to be?
 * 4) Read paragraph 5.
 * 5) We already have the answer to the initial question. What do you think the remaining information in the last two paragraphs is about?
 * 6) Were you at least close in any of your predictions in 8?
 * 1) Were you at least close in any of your predictions in 8?
 * 1) Were you at least close in any of your predictions in 8?
 * 1) Were you at least close in any of your predictions in 8?
 * 1) Were you at least close in any of your predictions in 8?


 * 1 || Modern hospital scanning techniques reveal new details about the mummified body of a 3,000-year Egyptian female singer, without opening her casket. ||
 * 2 || The images, which can be seen for the first time today at Chicago’s Oriental Institute Museum, show the body of Meresamun –a singer priestess– at a temple in Thebes in 800BC. The scans may give new information to Egyptologists about the sex lives of such singers. ||
 * 3 || Meresamun was buried in an elaborately decorated casket which has never been opened. On the casket you can read her name, her role as a singer and the inscription “she lives for Amun” (an Egyptian god). ||
 * 4 || Dr Emily Teeter, from the museum, said: “There is a debate among Egyptologists about whether women who were “Singers in the Interior of the Temple” (an official title) were celibate. One specific objective of the recent examination was to determine whether Meresamun had any children. The evidence was inconclusive. ||
 * 5 || Dr Michael Vannier, professor of radiology at the University of Chicago, who examined the scans, said they show “no convincing evidence of pregnancy”. ||
 * 6 || In this first detailed scanner on a mummy, the scans show that Meresamun’s eyes were decorated with jewels or pottery. They also reveal that her teeth show no sign of decay. “Remarkably all the teeth are present. There is no evidence of periodontal disease (the principal cause of tooth loss in modern humans),” Vannier said. ||
 * 7 || Earlier attempts to carry out scans of Meresamun's caskets in 1989 and 1991 produced not very clear images. It was thought they showed a tumour on her throat that might have killed her. The new images suggest that around her neck is only the resin used by the funeral embalmers. The cause of her death, at about the age of 30, is still unknown. ||