The Ultimate “Digitization” Project
Sarah Galloway, MLIS Candidate
When most librarians and archivists think of the word “digitization”, they will usually think of scanning papers, photos and sound recordings onto a computer to use on a website. However, in the historical/archival world, some professionals are taking digitization to the ultimate extreme for the cause of keeping archives and artifacts intact and undamaged.
One of these extremes was the CAT scan done of Tutankhamen, King Tut, “The Golden Pharaoh”. Everyone has heard of King Tut, he is the most famous Pharaoh there has ever been; and no one yet had been able to tell what he died from. One of the biggest rumors was that he was murdered by court factions, for when he was first exhumed, the archeologists found a hole in the back of his head. No one yet knew, either, what the young boy-king actually looked liked. Dr. Zahi Hawass, a famed Egyptologist and archivist, had a brilliant idea: why not use digital technology to their advantage and solve one of the biggest historical mysteries? Why not give King Tut a CAT scan? It solved the problem of making sure the mummy received no further damage while searching for the truth of his death.
Seimens Medical came to the rescue, and donated a moving CAT scan to be used for this project. Dr. Hawass found that they could only take King Tut’s mummy out for 3 hours; otherwise the air might start to affect the state of the wrappings he has been held in for so long. His team had to make sure they carefully got the mummy up the stairs and into the CAT scan without damaging him at all: they even had to take down a fence to do it! They were able to take an entire scan of his body, giving the skull images to a forensic sculpture to recreate what the famed King once looked like. A team of archeological forensic scientists studied the images. What did they find? King Tut died of a broken leg! Something that could definitely have been fatal back then and it is quite a far cry from the murder-mystery that has been going on for years.
Since the scanning of King Tut, 1500 other mummies have been scanned and diagnosed with reasons of death. The CAT scan has become an invaluable tool in the historical world.
This project should remind the archivist should always remember to think about all the types of digital tools we now have available; not just the regular computer scanner.
This is a picture of what King Tut looked like, done with the images of the CAT scan, made by Elizabeth Danes. [i]
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