Chhem&Brothwell (eds) - Paleoradiology ~ Imaging Mummies and Fossils, inne, Książki historyczne, ebook, pdf

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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
UK
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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