• HomeSweet home
  • Writingby David Eagleman
    • LivewiredThe Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain
    • The Runaway SpeciesHow Human Creativity Remakes the World
    • Brain and BehaviorA Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective
    • The BrainThe Story of You
    • IncognitoThe Secret Lives of the Brain
    • SUMForty Tales from the Afterlives
    • Wednesday is Indigo BlueDiscovering the Brain of Synesthesia
    • The Safety NetSurviving Pandemics and Other Disasters
    • Other WritingEssays and articles
    • Scientific Publications
  • ResearchDavid's Neuroscience
    • Time perception
    • Synesthesia
    • Neurolaw
    • Deep brain recording
    • Sensory Substitution
    • Antiphospholipid Syndrome
    • Other projects
  • BlogLatest Ideas
  • ScheduleWhere to catch David
  • ContactReach Us

A note about head shape in mummies

A note about head shape in mummies

In 2011, I scanned a 3,000 mummy, as described in my earlier post.  This is just a quick note about his perspicuously elongated skull shape, known as dolicocephy (elongated head).  

First, here's the profile of Neskhons (the mummy I scanned):

Neskhons Profile

Next, here's a shot of two other mummies:

Tut_and_KV55

(photo (c) National Geographic)

You can see the obvious resemblance in all three skulls.  Now here's the kicker.  The bottom-left mummy is King Tut.  The one on the right comes from a scan in 2007 of another mummy found in 2007.  That mummy was speculated to be the body of Tut's missing father Akhenaten -- based in large part on the observation that the skull looks roughly alike.  From the National Geographic news report:

"The CT scan supports the idea that the mummy is Akhenaten by revealing it as a male between the ages of 25 and 40 who shares many physical similarities with Tut—assuming Akhenaten was Tut's father, as some experts believe. The mystery mummy's strange elongated, egg-shaped skull, called dolichocephalic, is strikingly similar to Tutankhamun's."

Unfortunately, that alone is poor evidence, and here's why. Tut lived 350 years before Neskhons, and yet the skull shape is shared: it was common among the Egyptian royals. Therefore, one cannot draw a meaningful conclusions that two mummies are likely to be father and son simply based on an argument that their skulls look alike!   

  • Social sharing:
  • Add to Google Buzz
  • Add to Facebook
  • Add to Delicious
  • Digg this
  • Add to StumbleUpon
  • Add to Technorati
  • Add to Reddit
  • Add to MySpace
  • Like this? Tweet it to your followers!
Tagged under
  • Mummy

Related items

  • Scanning a 3,000 year old mummy
  • Discovering amulets inside the mummy
More in this category: « Will Self Why I am a Possibilian »
back to top

Follow David on Instagram Follow David on Tumblr Follow David on Twitter Follow David on Facebook

From the Blog

  • Why I am a Possibilian
    Why I am a Possibilian

    Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story is true or not true. I call myself a possibilian. Find out why.

  • A new map of the human brain
    A new map of the human brain

    New paper in Nature describes the most highly detailed map of the human cortex so far.

  • James Holmes’ Brain: Some Initial Speculations
    James Holmes’ Brain: Some Initial Speculations

    In the wake of the Aurora movie theater shooting, many people had the same questions: What kind of derangement is indicated by the horrific acts of James Holmes? What is wrong with his brain? How will his mental state play out in the courts?

  • Profile in The New Yorker
    Profile in The New Yorker

    I had the pleasure of being profiled by my favorite magazine, The New Yorker.  Read the article here.

In other news...

McGovern Award for excellence in Communication

David was honored to receive the 2014 John J. McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Education from the American Medical Writers' Assocation. Noted past recipients include authors Oliver Sacks and Abraham Verghese.

New York Times bestseller

IncognitoA 26 week New York Times bestseller, Incognito was named a Best Book of the Year by both Amazon and Goodreads. For a taste of the book, see a review in the Wall Street Journal, listen to a conversation on NPR's Fresh Air, or watch a video dialog with Wired Magazine. Reading Incognito now? We'd love to hear feedback!

 

Emily Blunt reads for the Sum audio book

Hear the actress Emily Blunt (Young Victoria, Devil Wears Prada) read "The Cast" from Sum. She is one of the dozens of terrific actors who read for the audio book.

brain paperback UK
Amazon

Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
DVD
Incognito Cover Eagleman
Amazon

Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
SumBestSeller
Amazon

Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
Cover Cytowic Eagleman
Amazon

Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
TheSafetyNetsmall
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
CogNeuroTextbook
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
Runaway Species Hardcover
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
Livewired Canongate sm2
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound

 
CSS Valid | XHTML Valid | Top | + | - | reset | RTL | LTR
Copyright © Youretro 2021 All rights reserved. Custom Design by Youjoomla.com
YJSimpleGrid Joomla! Templates Framework official website
Blog