How the British Museum found an angel tattooed on an Egyptian mummy

A photograph of the tattoo found on the mummified remains of a Sudanese woman. (Trustees of the British Museum)

The site of the excavation on the fourth cataract of the Nile in Sudan, where the grave was found in 2005. (Sudan Archaeological Research Society)

The grave of the Sudanese woman, on the excavation site on the Nile in Sudan. The owner of the tattoo died in about AD 700 and lived in a Christian community. (Sudan Archaeological Research Society)

The woman’s body was wrapped in a woolen and linen cloth before burial, and her remains were mummified in the desert heat. Here, a CT scan shows a 3D visualization of the mummified remains. (Trustees of the British Museum)

The same CT scan -- a 3D visualization of the mummified remains -- transformed to show the organs. (Trustees of the British Museum)

A research project that used advanced medical scans, including these CT images, examined Egyptian mummies at a number of hospitals in the United Kingdom last year. (Trustees of the British Museum)

As deciphered by curators, the tattoo on her thigh, written in ancient Greek, reads Μιχαήλ, transliterated as M-I-X-A-H-A, or Michael. (Trustees of the British Museum)