Radiologists have weighed in on a reportedly heated dispute in archeology over whether CT scans show that a mummified ancient Egyptian woman was pregnant.
First reported by Polish researchers from the National Museum in Warsaw in 2021, the finding sparked controversy, with some experts calling for the authors of the study to rescan the mummy using proper protocol supervised by a radiologist to clarify the diagnosis.
Yet the study authors held their position, and finally, with urging from the Polish Academy of Sciences, 10 international scientists (half radiologists) formed a team to independently review the original images. Their findings were published February 19 in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
According to a blog post by the study’s principal investigators, the results end four years of disputes.
“The heated scientific dispute became widely known around the world and often added lively color to international conferences,” they wrote.
The study consisted of an analysis of 701 CT images from the pelvic region, starting from the L3/L4 intravertebral disk space and ending at the proximal femur. The radiologists were provided three-months access to the images via PostDICOM, a cloud-based PACS that enables both 2D and 3D reconstructions, including multiplanar reformatting, maximum intensity projection, and volume rendering.
According to the results, all of the radiologists indicated clearly that there was no evidence of a fetus in the pelvic area.
“Not one marked the answer, ‘There is evidence to support the presence of a 26-30 week fetus’ or else expressed any doubt (no one indicated ‘Fetus can be neither confirmed nor excluded’),” the group wrote.
Ultimately, the researchers suggested that the original study may be a case of the “pareidolia phenomenon” – recognizing known shapes in random images – coupled with excessive research enthusiasm by its authors.
The full study is available here.
