Mummy I'm Ill

This doll-like bundle contains a dark secret: the mummy of a young Incan boy from South America, less than ten years old when he died and buried within the past 500 years. A team of archaeologists have managed to peek inside his carefully-layered wrappings using CT-scanning, usually used to see inside the bodies of living humans rather than the dead. This revealed the boy had a number of serious health issues including neurofibromatosis type 1, which affects the bones and soft tissues. He also had signs of the parasitic infection Chagas disease and a lung infection that looked like it might have been tuberculosis. But illness wasn’t the cause of his death, as the scientists found signs of a possible grisly end from violent stabbing. Whether it was through war, murder, accident or human sacrifice, it’s likely that this was the final blow that sadly killed an already sick child.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

Writer

Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image adapted from work by Stephanie Panzer and colleagues
• Department of Radiology, Trauma Center Murnau, Murnau, Germany
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS One, April 2017