"Words with a Mummy" The CT Scan Night

Back in March, MGH staff performed a CT scan on Padihershef to further understand his life and possible cause of death. The photos are now released below. Please check them out.

This CT Scan night was all performed and facilitated by the help of   Rajiv Gupta, MD, PhD, of MGH Imaging; conservator Mimi 

.Leveque; Collection's Specialist Rebecca Barber,  MGH 

  neurosurgeon Paul Chapman, MD; and members of Materials 

Management, Buildings and Grounds, and Police and Security. 

http://www.massgeneral.org/imaging/about/newsarticle.aspx?id=4045

Removing Padi from his old 19th century case was one of the hardest parts of the project

Multiple times we needed to inspect Padihershef to make sure to prevent any damage to him and his coffin

Mimi helping Padi into the gerny

Security and facilities escorting Padi through MGH

As you can see the Padihershef was very popular with the media

Dr. Gupta helping to get xrays of Padihershef

The team realized there was still brain matter left in Padihershef's skull

Circle is the broom stick found in his chest cavity

Another rendered image of Padihershef post CT scan

To the left is Padihershef through the CT scan. The project team needed to wait until night time for the use of the CT scanner. This was to avoid having any scheduling conflicts  with living patients.

To the right is a great image of the CT scan of Padihershef's brain. It has been rendered to enhance the evidence of brain matter left in Padihershef's skull.

Rendered image

From this CT scan we found that Padihershef had a large broom stick handle in his skull and chest cavity. The team found out that a previous conservator in the 80's had used this in order to keep his head attached to his body.

 In addition, the chest cavity is all caved in. It is assumed that the cause of death was due to a cave in. This would be very likely seeing as Padihershef was a stone mason during his life and would have been underground working majority of the day.