An Ideal Solution? Optimising Pretreatment Methods for Artificially Mummified Ancient Egyptian Tissues.

CONCLUSIONS: The choice of tissue and the preparation methods used can have a significant effect on the accuracy of stable isotope data obtained from mummified tissue, particularly when embalming materials are also present. A mixture of solvents appears to be a more effective cleaning agent than a single solvent. Demineralisation with HCl is preferable for well-preserved bone as used in this study, but whether this is the case for more fragile, less well-preserved bone requires further study. Skin samples produce more consistent data than muscle, but visually distinguishing between these tissues is not simple on ancient mummies. PMID: 31785028 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31785028?dopt=Abstract

Source: Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry : RCM - November 28, 2019 Category: Chemistry Authors: Cockitt J, Lamb A, Metcalfe R Tags: Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom Source Type: research