Under wraps for hundreds of years, a Peruvian mummy from the Cornell University Anthropology Collections makes its television debut Oct. 7 at 8 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel's science program "The Mummy Road Show." The cable television episode, titled "Mummy in a Closet," repeats Oct. 7 at 11 p.m., Oct. 13 at 6 p.m. and Oct. 14 at 3 p.m. on National Geographic Channel.

The episode was taped April 26-29 in Ithaca when "Mummy Road Show" co-hosts Ron Beckett and Jerry Conlogue, two professors from Quinnipiac University, examined the Peruvian mummy with radiography and endoscopy in its McGraw Hall home at Cornell, then transported the mummy to Cayuga Medical Center for CT scan imaging. The weekly program travels around the world, using advanced imaging techniques and old-fashioned detective work to reveal the history of mummies found in unexpected places.

Little was known about the Cornell mummy – except that it represents a woman wrapped in fine textiles, donated to the university in 1899 by a Peruvian alumnus whose family founded the Rafael Larco Herrera Museum in Lima – until a Cornell undergraduate student became curious. Studying the specimen for a forensics class project, Brian Finucane realized he needed extensive X-rays to examine the inside of the well-preserved mummy, and he enlisted the help of the television show.

Although the student and Anthropology Collections curator Laura Johnson-Kelly assisted Beckett and Conlogue in the investigation, they won't know the experts' conclusions about the life and after-death history of the Peruvian woman until the program premieres Oct. 7.