Gruesome Mummy Head Reveals Science Advances during Medieval Period

The revelation of a mummy head shows historians that medieval science may have been more modernized than suspected.

This gruesome specimen, consisting of a human head and shoulders with the top of the skull and brain removed, has a red "metal wax" compound filled into the arteries that helped preserve the body, according to Yahoo! News, though rodent nibbles and insect larvae also trail the face as markers of time.

Yet researchers note particularly how advanced the preparation of the specimen was for the time period. As radiocarbon dating puts the age of the body between A.D. 1200 and A.D. 1280, this was previously considered Europe's anti-scientific era or "Dark Ages."

In fact, said study researcher Philippe Charlier, a physician and forensic scientist at University Hospital R. Poincare in France, the new specimen suggests surprising anatomical expertise during this time period.   

"It's state-of-the-art," Charlier said, according to LiveScience. "I suppose that the preparator did not do this just one time, but several times, to be so good at this."

Historians often refer to the Dark Ages or the 1800s as a time of illiteracy and barbarianism. However, modern historians see the Middle Ages with new eyes today, because continued scholarship has found that the medieval period wasn't so.

"There was considerable scientific progress in the later Middle Ages, in particular from the 13th century onward," said James Hannam, an historian and author of "The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution"

The specimen is set to go on display at the Parisian Museum of the History of Medicine.