Chhem&Brothwell (eds) - Paleoradiology ~ Imaging Mummies and Fossils.pdf - History and archaeology - piotrzachu69

R. K. Chhem · D. R. Brothwell

Paleoradiology

R. K. Chhem · D. R. Brothwell

Paleoradiology

Imaging Mummies and Fossils

With 390 Figures and 58 Tables

123

Don R. Brothwell, PhD

Department of Archaeology

The University of York

The King’s Manor

York Y01 7EP

Rethy K. Chhem, MD, PhD, FRCPC

Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine

Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry

University of Western Ontario

London Health Sciences Centre

339 Windermere Road

London, Ontario

N6A 5A5

Canada

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007936308

ISBN 978-3-540-48832-3 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York

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Foreword

The Radiologist’s Perspective

It is my pleasure to write the foreword to this groundbreaking text in paleoradiol-

ogy. Dr. Rethy Chhem is a distinguished musculoskeletal radiologist, and he is the

founder of the Paleoradiologic Research Unit at the University of Western Ontario,

Canada, and the Osteoarchaeology Research Group at the National University of

Singapore. His special area of paleoradiologic expertise is the Khmer civilization

of Cambodia, and his contributions to radiologic and anthropologic science have

built bridges between these two not always communicative disciplines.

Dr. Don Brothwell is of course well known to the paleopathology communi-

ty. He is something of an anthropologic and archaeologic polymath, having made

important contributions to dental anthropology, the antiquity of human diet,

and veterinary paleopathology, among others. His textbook, “Digging Up Bones”

(Brothwell 1982), has introduced many generations of scholars to bioarchaeology,

a discipline of which he is one of the founders. It is only fitting that this book is

the work of a radiologist and an anthropologist, both of whom have experience in

musculoskeletal imaging and paleopathology. For more than 100 years, diagnostic

imaging has been used in the study of ancient disease. In fact, one of the first com-

prehensive textbooks of paleopathology, “Paleopathologic Diagnosis and Interpre-

tation,” was written as an undergraduate thesis by a nascent radiologist, Dr. Ted

Steinbock (Steinbock 1976).

The advantages of diagnostic imaging in paleopathologic research should be

intuitively obvious. Osseous and soft tissue may be noninvasively and nondestruc-

tively imaged, preserving original specimens for research and display in a museum

setting. Not only will the original material, often Egyptian mummies, be preserved

for future generations of researchers, but public enthusiasm will be fostered by the

knowledge that we can see what is really underneath all those wrappings. Recent

advances in computed multiplanar image display present novel ways to increase

our understanding of the individuals, the processes of mummification and burial,

and the cultural milieu in which these people lived. Unfortunately, although the

potential of radiology has been recognized, the realization of collaborative effort

has been inconsistent.

The earliest use of radiography in paleopathology was in the diagnosis of specific

diseases in individuals, much as it is in clinical medicine today. Egyptian mummies

were radiographed as early as 1896. Comprehensive studies of mummy collections

were performed in the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in the exhaustive treatise by

Harris and Wente, with important contributions by Walter Whitehouse, MD, in

1980 (Harris and Wente 1980). The usefulness of radiologic analysis of collections

of such specimens led to the realization that diagnostic imaging has important im-

plications in paleoepidemiology as well as in the diagnosis of individual cases.

Technical innovations in radiology have paralleled progress in paleopathology.

We are now able to perform per three-dimensional virtual reproductions of the

facial characteristics so that mummies do not have to be unwrapped, and we can

now carry out “virtual autopsies” using three-dimensional computed tomography

as a guide. We are now also using modern imaging technology to go beyond pic-

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