Carestream Health Powers Further Discoveries at Chicago's Field Museum

Digital medical imaging and information technology from Carestream Health is being used to x-ray priceless Field Museum artifacts, including this ancient Egyptian mummy. Photo by Karen Bean; courtesy of The Field Museum

This image of the right femur of an ancient Egyptian mummy reveals the absence of new bone growth near the fracture, indicating that the leg was broken after the person died and the body mummified. Photo courtesy of The Field Museum

This mask or "false head," made from fiber-stuffed fabric with wood and paint decoration, would originally have been attached to a South American mummy from Pachamac, a coastal site about 15 miles southeast of Lima, Peru. Photo by John Weinstein, courtesy of The Field Museum

This image of an ancient Peruvian mask or "false head" shows the surprising presence of shells inside the stuffing of the mask. This information may help to answer the tantalizing question of why this "false head" was packed with shells. The shells appear to be a deliberate addition to the filling of the mask, possibly a food offering, but their meaning is unclear since no other specimens with added shells are known. Photo courtesy of The Field Museum