In true criminal offence , you get cold case and then you get the really , really inhuman cause , like that of the destruction of two mummy who were killed between 740 and 1,120 years ago . While their cause of last might not be of much involvement to whoever their now - relatives are , they do pose an interesting challenge for scientist doing a little detective work .
In a unexampled study published toFrontiers In Medicine , researchers were able to transmit something of a virtual autopsy using their mummified remains . You might wonder what detail could mayhap be left after more than 1,000 years , but the fact that they are more than just skeleton provides a little supernumerary squirm room for find .
Trauma from violence was found to be present in21 percent of maleswithin a sample of pre - Columbian stay on in a recent review , so it would n’t be surprising to find standardised evidence for these specimens . One , the Marburg mummy , herald from a fishing community in the Arica cultivation of what ’s now cognise as Chile .
The “Delémont man” (right) and the “Delémont woman” (left) in their repository case. Image credit: A-M Begerock, R Loynes, OK Peschel, J Verano, R Bianucci, I Martinez Armijo, M González, AG Nerlich
And the other , the Delémont mummy ( found as part of a pair alongside a female ) , came from the Arequipa area of today ’s Peru and was buried in an unusual fashion for the sentence : face - up .
investigator on the new study put the mummies through a 3D reckon imaging ( 3D CT ) scan to examine the remains and look for signs of violent trauma . sure enough enough , they find that both virile mummy had died from extreme and intentional violence .
The Marburg mummy is think to have been murdered in one of two way : “ One assaulter reach the victim with full military group on the read/write head and [ a ] second assaulted … stab[bed ] the victim ( who still was support or kneeing ) in the back , ” the authors write in their paper .
The Marburg male mummy. Image credit: A-M Begerock, R Loynes, OK Peschel, J Verano, R Bianucci, I Martinez Armijo, M González, AG Nerlich
instead , " the same or another assaulter standing on the right side of the dupe struck the head and then turn to the back of the victim and stabbed him . ”
Ouch . And things did n’t look much brighter for our Delémont humankind who point “ massive hurt against the cervical vertebral column which represent most potential the cause of death . The important dislocation of the two cervical vertebral bodies itself is deadly and may have led to immediate death . ”
A foul , but perhaps mercifully spry final stage , then , and one which has enabled scientists to conduct detective work in ways that would not have been potential with likewise aged specimens .
3D CT scan of the skull of the Délémont male mummy. Image credit: A-M Begerock, R Loynes, OK Peschel, J Verano, R Bianucci, I Martinez Armijo, M González, AG Nerlich
“ Here we show lethal trauma in two out of three South American mummies that we investigated with 3D CT , ” corresponding author Dr Andreas G Nerlich , a prof at the Department of Pathology of Munich Clinic Bogenhausen in Germany , said in astatement . “ The types of hurt we find would not have been noticeable if these human remains had been mere underframe . ”
“ The study of human mummified cloth can reveal a much higher charge per unit of injury , specially intentional trauma , than the cogitation of skeletons , " Nerlich conclude . " There are gobs of South American mummies which might profit from a standardized investigation as … we did here . ”
