Museum mummy murder mystery

Dec 15 2008 By Ben Goldby

IT is the murder mystery which has spanned thousands of years.

Archaeologists have long questioned how an unidentified man entombed in a 1,700-year-old mummy at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery met his death.

Now they hope the macabre case may finally be solved with the help from medical experts from the Midlands.

The elaborately-bandaged Greco-Roman mummy, with gilt terracotta studs, was donated to the museum in the 1920s by Albert Phillips, a Birmingham bedstead maker who often travelled to the Middle East.

Results from previous X-rays revealed an unidentified metal