Scan technique reveals secrets of ancient Egyptian mummies

CAIRO – 3 January 2018: Recently, researchers in London have managed to develop a new scanning technique to reveal hidden writings on papyrus found in ancient Egyptian sarcophagi of mummies.

This new technique may provide historians with new information about the daily life in Ancient Egypt. The sarcophagi of mummies were made of old papyrus that was made of shopping lists and tax returns.
“[They] constitute one of the best libraries we have of waste papyrus that would otherwise have been thrown away, so it includes information about these individual people about their everyday lives," Professor Adam Gibson of University College London mentioned in an interview with BBC.

One of the early successes of the new scanning technique is the discovery of the name of “Irethorru” on a footplate of a mummy case kept at a museum at Chiddingstone Castle in Kent.

“Irethorru” was a common name in the ancient Egyptian society and means “the eye of Horus is against my enemies.” The scraps of papyrus are more than 2,000 years old. The writing on them is hidden due to plaster, ink and glow used for decorating mummy cases.