Few contest the fact that the dead must be dealt with respectfully.
Yet it seems as though Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme
Council of Antiquities, has a different point of view. Many in Egypt
were miffed when Hawass planned to X-ray the mummy of King Tutankhamun,
inviting a team of 60 Egyptian archaeologists to perform the
examination. Former dean of the al-Kasr al-Aini College of Medicine, Dr
Saleh Bedir, is vexed. Bedir was once the person in charge of all
projects involving the examination of the mummies of the pharaohs. But,
he has some reservations.
"I decided to get out of the whole affair of examining the mummies of
the pharaohs," Bedir says. "I have a respectful record which I need to
preserve." Bedir explains that when the pharaonic mummies examination
project started 18 months ago, it did not include the mummy of the
Golden King.
"We were planning to examine mummies from the Bahariya Oasis only,"
he says in an interview with Rose el-Youssef magazine. "It was an
attempt to implement a grand scientific research project about the
non-royal mummies. But, a few months later I discovered that things
weren't moving as planned. When I officially learned that the project
was beginning to deviate, I decided to leave it altogether. To my
knowledge, the more the mummies of the pharaohs are examined, the more
they are harmed. And that's why I refused to take part in the
examination of the Golden King," Bedir rationalises.
"There's nothing wrong with scanning the mummies," says Bedir. "But,
it can be very dangerous if those who are involved in performing the
examination aren't specialists. The team that went to Luxor to examine
Tutankhamun didn't contain a single specialist. That's why it was very
dangerous," he adds.
Dr Abdel Halim Nour Eddin, Dean of the College of Antiquities, Fayoum
Branch, is equally discomposed.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with scanning the mummies,"
Nour says. "But, when it comes to using such a sophisticated technology
like CT scanning, there must be some limitations. I mean, there should
have first been a study of the effects of these rays on the mummies," he
adds. "The weather conditions must be suitable for the examination. This
is a time when the mummy is taken out of the sarcophagus for
examination. Eyewitnesses say that a big sand storm took place at the
time the mummy was being examined. This is very dangerous," Dr Nour
Eddin warns. "The question I like to ask now is: why did Dr Bedir leave
the examination of the pharaoh's mummies project?" Nour Eddin asks. "Why
was Tutankhamun in particular chosen for the X-ray? Is it because he's
the most famous of all the pharaohs and the examination would trigger
the attention of media people and journalists worldwide?"
"Some people are waiting for a clarification of why the CT scan took
place and what actually happened," Nour Eddin says.
Dr Abdel Fatah al-Sabahi, member of the Antiquities Committee, has a
different point of view. "The mummy of the Golden King must be
examined," he says, dismissing other's misgivings. "It hasn't been
examined since it was first unearthed by Howard Carter in 1922. The
necessary technology needed for the examination did not exist then
either," he adds.
Al-Sabahi points out that to know how the Golden King died is of
great importance; hence the X-ray examination. "We aren't against
scientific research," he says. "I don't think there's any basis for the
arguments against the examination."
