"Mummies" was developed by Chicago's Field Museum, which lays claim to the largest collection of Egyptian and Peruvian specimens in the US. But many of these haven't been seen by the public since the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Back then, the only way to take a closer look was to physically unwrap the body, risking damage to the funereal objects and preserved remains. When X-rays arrived on the scene, they presented a boon to researchers, finally letting them peek inside. The first mummy was photographed this way in 1898, and the Field Museum's entire collection was examined and written about in 1931. But standard X-rays are lacking in nuance: They're limited to 2D representation, capture a lot of irrelevant data, and can't distinguish between objects of different densities.

Computed tomography scanning addresses all these problems. The first time a mummy was examined via CT was way back in 1977, just four years after the tech appeared in hospitals. But it's only in the past decade that the Field Museum did a deep dive into its collection. This was made possible with portable CT scanners that could be brought to its facility, rather than taking the risk of transporting specimens to a hospital or lab.

The researchers at the Field learned a lot. One body, the "Gilded Lady," belonged to a middle-aged woman who lived during the Roman era. They found she had an overbite and tight curly hair. Another mummy whose coffin identified him as "Minirdis" turned out to not be Minirdis at all; the body was 200 years younger than the coffin, indicating that the box was recycled. The CT scans provided enough info that the scientists were able to print 3D copies of the skulls, passing them off to an artist to do full facial reconstructions that are also on display.