The falcon. It's one of the fastest animals in the world. To a mouse, a terrifying bird of prey.
In Ancient Egypt, it was associated with the powerful sky god Horus, who was often
shown as a falcon or with falcon features. It's no surprise, then, that the remains
of some falcons were mummified and placed in a container, just like Egypt's rulers and many other
people in the country were buried in coffins. You can find the container holding this ancient
bird, along with many other animals like cats and ibises, in the Egyptian
galleries at The Met—even though the animals themselves died more than 2000 years ago.
Are there animal remains still hiding in these containers and mummy bundles? And how can we
find out without opening them up or taking them apart? That's where x-rays come in.
That's right. X-rays. Just like the kind they use to check for broken bones at the doctor's office.
Conservators at the Museum, who use scientific tools to study, protect, and preserve all kinds
of works of art can use X-rays to determine whether there really is a falcon inside...
...or a cat...
...or an ibis, a kind of bird.
Sometimes X-rays can uncover a secret hidden within the animal.
For example: in this radiograph of an ibis's mummy bundle, we can see a snail shell.
So how does it work? The x-ray machine
sends high energy radiation through a vacuum and emits x-rays, another form of radiation that can
pass through solid objects—including human or animal bodies. The radiation can be directed
towards the object we are looking into. And a digital plate records the light where it
has penetrated. Areas that are thicker and materials that are denser will block the x-rays.
Therefore, when we radiograph a body, the flesh appears darker and the bones are white.
There are lots of ways in which x-rays are used at the Museum,
such as detecting damage in works of art and seeing how they were restored in the past...
...Or how an object was made. Only by looking in the x-ray did we understand that these
sheet metal wings are hinged, so that the owl flapped its wings when the disk was moved...
X-rays can show us a lot about how well certain objects were made. Inside, this 4000-year-old
copper statue looks like Swiss cheese. X-rays also revealed the remains of bones
from a centuries-old falcon here and here. Mystery solved, thanks to X-rays!