Scientists glimpse inside a Peruvian mummy.

By Daniel Nasaw and Matt Danzico BBC News Magazine, Washington,28 October 2011

In a small room lined with shelves of skulls, fossils, bones and antique violins, researchers are using advanced computer imaging to study priceless objects, including a mummy from Peru. So what's inside?

Some patients find CT scanners and other medical imaging devices claustrophobic.

But this lady, a high-born Peruvian woman in her 40s, was not complaining - she has been dead for about seven centuries. And researchers at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History would like to know a bit more about her.

The nameless woman is one of the best preserved Peruvian mummies anywhere, and the CT scanner allows researchers to peer inside her without damaging her.

The scanner uses x-rays to shoot thousands of images of the object in thin slices. Computer software then reassembles the images to create highly accurate, detailed three-dimensional models and reconstructions.

"We could probably do the same with a traditional autopsy," says Bruno Frohlich, a physical anthropologist with the museum, "but there would be nothing left for future generations and it would destroy something that should not be destroyed."