Inside the mummy, a 2,000-year-old girl

Scientists use new technology to explore details and model 3D mummies of 2,000-year-old girls in Egypt.

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California, USA, is displaying the mummy of a 5-year-old girl dating back 2,000 years. The mummy is covered with linen with round earrings, a necklace and amulets, according to Live Science. Many organs of mummies are removed to limit the growth of bacteria.

CT scans are combined with mummy surface 3D scans to create a 3D model.(Photo: Volume Graphics).

Because they did not know the girl's real name, the scientists named the mummy Sheri , in Egyptian language meaning "small person". Julie Scott, executive director of Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, said Sheri lived during the Roman Empire ruling Egypt. This girl has signs of dying because of dysentery.

Since 2015, researchers have used CT scans to look deep under the mummy's cover. Recently, they combine these images with the Artec Eva portable 3D scanner that can take pictures of mummies without touching it but still have a more detailed overall picture.

A researcher uses Artec Eva handheld 3D scanner to scan the mummy's surface.(Photo: Live Science).

While the CT scanner penetrated under the mummy cover better, the handheld 3D scanner was able to color scan, capturing details that the CT scanner could not detect. Data from two scans are combined into a single 3D mummy model with software developed by Volume Graphics.

This model will allow visitors to Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum to observe mummies in detail on the iPad screen."Tourists can move iPads through mummies to look at related scans," Scott said.

"The new scanning technique allows for more accurate description of almost all types of objects, thus improving our understanding of scanned objects. It will have many applications in the field of archeology, Future biology, geology and paleontology , " said Christof Reinhart, executive director of Volume Graphics.