The Life Scientific - Rosalie David

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rosalie David is a pioneer in the study of ancient Egypt. In the early 1970s, she launched a unique project to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine. Back then, the vast majority of Egyptologists regarded mummies as unimportant sources of information about life in ancient Egypt. Instead they focussed on interpreting hieroglyphic inscriptions, the written record in papyrus documents and archaeological remains and artefacts. Rosalie David proved that the traditionalists were quite wrong.

Professor David’s mummy research started at the Manchester Museum when she began to collaborate with radiologists at in Manchester, taking the museum’s mummies for x-rays at the hospital. Her multi-disciplinary team later moved to a dedicated institute at the University of Manchester, the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology. Over the decades, the team there has made remarkable discoveries about disease and medicine in ancient Egyptian society, providing a new perspective on the history of medicine and giving extraordinary insights into the lives of individuals all those years ago.

Rosalie tells Jim Al-Khalili about her journey from classics and ancient history to biomedicine, including some of her adventures in Egypt in the 1960s. She talks about some of her most significant research projects, and the 21st Century forensic detective work on the mummy of a young woman which revealed a gruesome murder 3,000 years ago...

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Did you know that you can listen to many of your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds?
0:06.6	Like Desert Island Discs, where you can hear castaways like Cher,
0:10.4	Gareth Southgate and Nick Cave, and enjoy longer versions of the music they've picked.
0:15.6	Good things come to those who don't wait.
0:18.6	Listen to your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds.
0:23.0	Think of ancient Egypt and you probably picture the pyramids or the sphinx or hieroglyphics or
0:29.5	mummies. Well, today we will be focused very much on mummies because my guest is Rosalie David,
0:36.3	the UK's first female professor of Egyptology.
0:39.6	Half a century ago, as a young Egyptologist in Manchester, Rosalie launched a unique project
0:45.0	to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine, something no other
0:50.8	Egyptologists was doing back then. Rosalie's mummy research started at the Manchester Museum
0:56.3	and later moved to a dedicated University of Manchester Institute,
1:00.5	the K&H Centre for Biomedical Egyptology.
1:04.4	Over the decades, her team have made remarkable discoveries
1:07.5	about disease and medicine in ancient Egyptian society, providing a new perspective on the history of medicine and giving extraordinary insights into the lives of individuals all those years ago.
1:20.0	Rosalie, David, welcome to the life scientific.
1:22.0	Hello.
1:23.1	Now, Rosalie, I know that when you started your research on mummies back in the early 70s,
1:28.8	you and your collaborators had a particular approach in mind, something called the Manchester Method.
1:34.4	What is it?
1:35.7	Yes, the Manchester Method is a way of combining historical and archaeological evidence with bioscience
1:43.4	and bringing them together so that you can gain from all
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.