I've asked a few academics about this image they all said different things be it a non metric trait or pathology. If anyone can take a look and shed some light on what this may be. The nail on the image is part of the coffin it had it's x rays in. This image has zoomed in and looks like a little face, any suggestions would be welcomed. I've been trying to confirm this pathology but I have had some say it's a fracture, a humeral aperture or supra-trochlear humerus.
This is more or less a lateral xray view, and a corresponding anterior-posterior view would permit you to better place the object in 3 dimensions. It also apppears to be related to a defect in the distal femur--the oval dark spot that shouldn't be there. It is dark because there is an absence of bony tissue which would appear gray/white.
The little face-like object could be a chondroma,could be an endochondroma if inside the femur, or an osteochondroma if external. But with that oval lesion, I would suspect an injury resulting in a displaced fragment of bone, and a subsequent abscess or osteomyelitis. But I am a family physician and not an orthopedic surgeon.
Hi, Catherine,
The image you have appears to me to be a medially-rotated elbow. The darker circle area is normal - a thinner area of bone called the olecranon fossa, where the olecranon process comes in contact with the distal humerus. The white density that is superimposed on the olecranon fossa is definitely different. As Dr. Babcock recommended, it would be easier to know more about it if you had an additional projection at a 90 degree angle to this one. It could be calcification in a tendon, chondroma, or simply something that has fallen onto the area from the casket or the cloth they were buried in. I am attaching an image of a normal oblique elbow for comparison.
BTW - It would be interesting to find out what it is. Can you give us more background on the "patient" and/or what you are looking for? Very interesting :)
This is an Egyptian mummy dated from the Late dynastic period, her skeleton within her wrappings has collapsed (possibly caused by bomb blast during the WWII). Even though she has collapsed and there is a lot of disarticulated material scattered, it clear on the x ray her arm is wrapped away from the stray bones.
Sadly details of her and her role in life I have no information, like most mummies in museums their origin is lost due to early explorers purchasing them in Egypt as souvenirs. Their coffin which they were contained their details normally sold separately or given to another mummy. Her coffin is a modern one and she has no name.
Here's the image I cropped it from.
Sesamoid bones are calcifications that form in tendons at points of stress. The patella is the major example, but most people have a couple near the ball of their foot as well. I have seen people who do work with repetitive jarring of the joints (for instance a blacksmith) develop sesamoids at multiple other joints.
This article might be helpful.
http://www.birpublications.org/doi/pdf/10.1259/0007-1285-22-259-384
hi... interesting discussion. first the humerous (arm bone) is more so in AP position you can see the both epicondyles though the forearm is in pronation ( the distal end of the radius bone is on medial aspect ). Another image in plane perpendicular in the provided plan is must to see if the lesion is within the bone or outside in soft tissue or its some artifact.
Sesamoids bones are usually not seen at this location but its not an absolute criterion.
well, can be olecranon fossa with no fat thus appearing so prominent but the lower margin would have not been so well defined had it been a fossa ( just a thought) or its the slight rotation as mentioned by Clara Allen which is making it prominent.
Another thing that might interest you, as you are working on pathologies found in mummyies is the marginal osteophytes in the visualised lumbar vertebrae.
There is a tooth in the right half of the pelvis, please also confirm if it is due to the mangled body parts or is with in the body because in later case it would in a diagnosis or dermoid of the ovary as you mentioned its a female. Tooth are known to be found in dermoids of ovary :)
I've attached an image of the skull and as you can see it's missing nearly all of her teeth from the maxilla, I believe she may have been stood upright at some point thus resulting in the teeth falling onto the pelvic area.
She is an elderly lady who may have suffered from periodontal disease as she is missing all of her premolars and molars in her mandible.
Sadly I cannot x ray the image the mummy otherwise I would, but due to funding, transportation etc it wouldn't be possible.
Thank you for all the help! :)
Osteochondroma is a tempting idea, but without a lateral film (or better yet a CT), it is impossible to tell if the structure superimposed on the olecranon fossa/foramen is even in the same plane as the elbow (just like the coffin nail/radius relationship).
Dislodged teeth resting in the abdomen, in a mummy that's been handled roughly like this, are not uncommon. It does look like there's been a lot of alveolar resorption in the mandible and maxilla, though, so lateral X-rays would be a help there, too.
Transporting the mummy to a hospital for an X-ray may be beyond your permissions and funding, but there are pretty straightforward ways to X-ray the mummy in place. I'd recommend having a look at Gerald Conlogue and Ron Beckett's Paleoimaging: Field Applications for Cultural Remains and Artifacts and renting a portable X-ray unit for an afternoon (or even contacting a large-animal veterinarian about borrowing their portable X-ray unit).
Hi carla...id you look at the frontal sinus on the left , there is an similar well defined radiodense lesion probably suggestive of frontal osteoma ? Or fibrous dysplasia. So putting all the findings we could be looking at Gardeners Syndrome?.
I'd recommend contacting your university's research office. They should be able to help you with identifying funding options and putting you in touch with someone in a medical/veterinary field who can do a CT scan of a coffin or do digital radiography (which would probably be more useful than the films you are using) of the mummy. I also have had great success just reaching out to other people in different disciplines to collaborate. They might also be able to sit down with you, help you go over the x-rays, and give you some more specific suggestions that you can take into consideration with all of these.
The 'face in humerus' image is an interesting artefact. Without a proper background history of the genesis of the image one will continue in the realm of conjecture and intelligent guessworks.
It would have also been helpful to have the image in another plane; lateral.
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