Navigation: WikiStart | HSOM Library | HSOM Index

Mummies

When a person or animal dies, bacteria on the body causes it to decompose, eventually leaving just the skeleton behind. But sometimes, if the conditions are just right, a body will be mummified instead. A mummy is any dead body where the fleshy parts have been somehow preserved. Mummies are found all over the world, and have been preserved in a variety of ways. Sometimes they are mummified accidentally by nature, and sometimes they are mummified intentionally by humans. Although there are many different types of human and animal mummies, the one thing they all have in common is that somehow bacteria was prevented from causing the body to rot.

Sometimes, the forces of nature can stop bacteria from rotting a corpse. Extreme cold can prevent (or at least slow down) decomposition. In 1984, scientists discovered the mummies of three English sailors in the Canadian Arctic. These bodies were in such good shape that one of the scientists remarked that they looked like they were still alive, just unconscious. But these sailors have been dead for about 150 years!

Another famous frozen mummy is "the Ice Man," who has the prestige of being the oldest well-preserved human mummy in the world. How old? About 5,300 years! Hikers found him frozen in a glacier in the Alps near the border of Italy and Austria. By studying his body and the clothing and tools that were found with him, scientists are trying to figure out who the Ice Man was and how he lived and died.

The Ice Man may be the oldest frozen human mummy, but there is a frozen animal mummy that's even older. In 1977, a mummified baby woolly mammoth was found in ice-- it had died 30,000 years ago!

Mummies are sometimes created accidentally by nature in bogs. A bog is a marshy wet area that is filled with peat moss. Even though a bog is not cold like the Arctic or the Alps, a dead body thrown into a bog can still be preserved. Bacteria needs oxygen as well as warmth, but the densely-packed peat creates an oxygen deficient environment that prevents bacteria from causing decay. Bog mummies are pretty nasty to look at-- their skin is blackened and leathery and they look all stretched out, as if they were made of rubber. The best bog mummies are found in Europe, especially in Denmark. Scientists believe that these people were killed on land, maybe as a punishment or as a human sacrifice, and then thrown into the bog.

In addition to warmth and oxygen, bacteria also needs moisture to decompose a corpse. In the late 1800's, the mummified bodies of people (and pet dogs, too!) were found buried in a cemetery located in the dry desert region of coastal Peru.

And of course, some mummies are made intentionally by humans. No matter what mummification technique is used, a mummy is always made by somehow robbing bacteria of at least one of the factors it needs to cause decay: moisture, warmth, or oxygen.

The Gaunche people of the Canary Islands used to dry the bodies of their dead and stuff them with plants. Ancient New Guineans, Colombians, and some Peruvians would smoke-dry their dead, preserving them like beef jerky! Killing bacteria with chemical treatments is another manner in which to preserve a body. From 1599 to 1920, Sicilian monks used a secret process to mummify the dead. Six thousand of these mummies are on display in the catacombs of a church in Palermo, Sicily.

Even some well-known people have been mummified in recent times. In 1952, the body of Eva Peron (she was the wife of a former leader of Argentina, and the subject of the movie "Evita") was preserved by a technique that involved paraffin wax. Russian leader Vladimir Lenin was also mummified. His body is actually on display in Red Square, Moscow!

By far, the most famous mummies are those from Egypt. The earliest ones were created accidentally by nature, but eventually the ancient Egyptians began creating them intentionally to go along with their belief in an afterlife. Egyptian mummifying techniques evolved over several thousands of years. People weren't the only kind of mummies-- cats, crocodiles, baboons, and a legion of other animal species were immortalized as well.

Around seven or eight thousand years ago, people began to settle on the banks of Nile River in the area that we now call Egypt. Every year the Nile flooded, leaving a fresh layer of fertile soil along the shore after the flood waters !receded. Beyond the fertile soil lay the barren desert sands, so the ancient Egyptians could only grow their crops in the rich soil along the Nile. The Egyptians weren't about to waste this precious land on graveyards, so they chose to bury their dead in the hot desert sands instead.

The dead were buried unclothed in a crouched position in shallow graves. Clay pots of food and water and some of the deceased's favorite possessions were put in the grave with the body. It was believed that the spirit would use these items in the afterlife. What the early Egyptians didn't realize was that the hot dry sands naturally preserved the dead by absorbing the moisture out of the body. Without moisture, bacteria on the bodies couldn't cause decay. This was good news because in some mysterious way, their dead relatives seemed to still be living. Sort of, anyway!

However, the manner in which they found this out was not good news. The early Egyptians probably realized that the dead were preserved after discovering that the scavenging jackals were digging up the bodies to eat.

So what's an Egyptian to do? The bodies obviously needed a more dignified burial. One improvement was to pile rocks on the graves to keep the jackals out. They also began lining the burial pits with straw or animal skins. Later still, they added floors and walls made of mud bricks. These early tombs were much better than a simple hole in the sand.

Dead kings, queens, and nobles were prepared even more carefully. Instead of being buried without clothes, they were wrapped in linen, which is a type of cloth made from the flax plant. To protect the body even further, melted resin (a sticky plant extract that hardens to a varnish-like finish) was used to coat the linen bandages. After the resin dried, the body was placed with jewels and treasures in a tightly closed coffin and buried even deeper than an ordinary grave.

However, these more elaborate burials were disasters, not improvements! Since the coffin and the coating of resin and linen kept the hot dry sand away from the corpse, the bodies decayed from within instead of becoming mummified. The Egyptians probably discovered this when grave robbers broke into the graves to steal the treasures. All that remained inside the stiff bandages were bones.

The Egyptians faced a dilemma. They desired elaborate burials, but wanted to preserve the dead as well. They realized that the trick was to preserve the bodies before burial. They experimented with different techniques and finally discovered a method of mummification that was so effective that their mummies are still preserved today.

Egyptians believed that a person's soul had many parts, and that all people and the parts of their souls were sculpted from clay by the ram-headed god named Khnum. One of these parts was called the ka. The ka was a person's double, sort of an invisible twin, which supposedly lived in the body until death. It was necessary to prevent the dead body from decaying because the ka still needed it!

Sometimes a statue that resembled the deceased would be placed in the tomb with the mummy. These ka statues were a back-up, to make sure the ka had a body to belong to, just in case something should happen to the mummy. In addition to a recognizable body, the ka also needed food to survive. When Egyptians left food and water at the tomb, they were leaving it for the ka.

Another part of the soul was called the ba. The ba was usually shown as a bird with a human head that looked like that of the dead person. Unlike the ka, which stayed in the tomb with the mummy, the ba was able to leave. It could fly out of the tomb, magically passing through walls of solid rock. But it always returned to the mummy at night. Like the ka, it could only live forever if it was able to find and recognize the body to which it belonged. And this wouldn't be possible if the body decomposed! This is why the Egyptians wanted to preserve the dead in as life-like a state as possible. Mummification was the guarantee of eternal life.

What isn't known is whether the Egyptians practiced mummification to support their religion, OR if they shaped their religious beliefs to go along with their desire for fancy burials, which relied on mummification.

Early attempts at mummification were not successful because the coffin, bandages, and resin locked the moisture inside the corpse, making it rot from within. But making mummies turned out to be not so difficult after all-- the Egyptians improved on nature by artificially drying the bodies before sealing with resin.

The entire process of mummification took 70 days to complete. Several well-respected embalmers conducted the task in a special enclosure called a per nefer. The chief embalmer was known as the hery seshta. He wore a jackal mask to represent Anubis, the god of mummification. Assistants called wetyw bandaged the body and carried out other tasks of the embalming process.

After being delivered to the per nefer, the deceased was placed upon a slanted table. The first task that needed to be done was to remove the soft, moist body parts that would cause decay. As these parts were removed, blood and other bodily fluids trickled out and flowed down the table into a collecting bowl.

During the Old and Middle Kingdoms, the brain was left in the head, but starting in the New Kingdom it was removed. The bone that separates the nasal cavity from the brain cavity was broken open by ramming a sharp instrument up the nose. Then, a long hook was used to stir up the brain until it was liquefied. By turning the body face down, the brain would spill out the nostrils. The Egyptians were so rough on the brain because they didn't realize its importance. They thought its purpose was just to produce snot!

Next, some of the major organs were removed. One of the embalmers would use a blade made of sharpened stone or obsidian to make an incision in the left side of the abdomen. Although this step was entirely necessary to remove the organs, they didn't like it because it was considered sinful to "injure" a corpse. In mock ceremony, the other embalmers present would curse and throw stones at the man who made the cut. They didn't really try to hurt him, it was all just part of the ceremony.

The stomach, intestines, liver, and lungs were removed and preserved by drying them in a special salt called natron. Natron is chemically similar to a mixture of table salt and baking soda. Originally dissolved in the ground water, it is found in clumps by oases where it gets left behind when water evaporates.

After drying, the organs would be put in a four-chambered box. This box was stored in the tomb with the mummy. The Egyptians believed that all body parts would be magically reunited in the afterlife and the body would become whole again, just like the god Osiris. According to Egyptian mythology, the god Osiris was murdered by his jealous brother Set and hacked into pieces. The goddess Isis reassembled the pieces and Osiris was magically restored, and went on to become the god of the afterlife.

In later times, it became customary to put each organ into a separate container called a canopic jar. During the Middle Kingdom, the stoppers of the jars were carved to resemble the face of the dead person. Later still, during the New Kingdom, the stoppers of canopic jars were shaped like the heads of the four sons of the god Horus. Each son protected the organ placed inside his respective jar.

Duamutef, who had the head of a jackal, guarded the jar that contained the stomach. Qebehsenuf, who had the head of a falcon, watched over the intestines. Hapi, the baboon-headed son of Horus, protected the lungs, while human-headed Imseti was in charge of protecting the liver.

Canopic jars were usually stored in a four-chambered chest that was later placed in the tomb with the mummy. By 1000 BC, the preserved organs were wrapped in linen and placed back in the mummy's body, but the empty canopic jars were still placed in the tomb.

After the organs were removed, the body was washed with wine and rubbed with spices. The alcohol in the wine acted as an antiseptic, helping to kill bacteria. The corpse was then covered with natron, where it sat for 40 days to dry out. Once dried, the skin was shrunken and leathery. The mummy was cleaned again and rubbed with sacred oils to soften the skin.

In one Egyptian myth, the god Horus had his eye miraculously restored after losing it in a battle with the evil god Set. The eye of Horus, known as a wedjat, is associated with healing and protection. A wax or bronze plate with a wedjat carved into it was placed over the embalming incision to magically heal the mummy in the afterlife.

Once the body was fully dried and cleaned, it was adorned with jewelry. Then it was covered in linen shrouds and bound with linen strips. Small magical amulets were inserted between the layers of the bandages to protect the mummy's spirit on its way to the afterlife. As each layer was added, it was coated with resin to hold the wrappings together with a waterproof seal.

After about 1000 years of making mummies, the Egyptians came up with yet another way to make sure the ba and ka could recognize their body. After the mummy was wrapped, a mask was fitted over the head and shoulders. The faces on these funeral masks resembled those of the dead, so the ba and ka could identify the mummy as their own. Funeral masks were made out of solid gold (like King Tut's), wood, or cartonnage (a material similar to paper-mâché). Wooden and cartonnage masks were painted or gilded with gold.

To further protect the mummy from possible damage, Egyptians often placed them in one or more coffins. Like many other Egyptian burial customs, the styles of the coffins changed over the thousands of years that mummification was practiced.

The earliest coffins of the Old Kingdom were boxy and made of wood. Their decoration was usually very plain, with just some hieroglyphics and a pair of wedjat eyes painted at the head end. The wedjat eyes allowed the mummy to "see" into the world of the living. Painted below the wedjat eyes was a false door to allow the spirit to come and go as it pleased. As time passed, the decoration became more elaborate. Images of gods, hieroglypics that spelled out protective prayers, and pictures of amulets covered almost every square inch of these coffins.

During the Middle Kingdom, Egyptians began to make anthropoid (or mummiform) coffins. Whether you call them anthropoid or mummiform, both words mean "human shaped." Like the funeral masks, these coffins had faces that resembled the person inside to help the ba and ka recognize it. Many of these were made of cartonnage because it was cheap, light, and easy to shape and paint. Some of these were gilded with gold as well.

These coffins were heavily decorated with hieroglyphics and pictures of gods and magic symbols to protect the mummy on its way to the afterlife.

And for even more protection, some mummies were placed into a sarcophagus. A sarcophagus is a coffin made of stone. They are quite heavy (several tons) so several men were required to position a sarcophagus into a tomb. Sarcophagi were expensive, so only pharaohs and queens, priests and priestesses, viceroys, nobles, and other important officials were buried in them. Like regular coffins, sarcophagi were either rectangular or mummiform.

Although coffins and sarcophagi did a pretty good job of protecting the mummy, the greatest safeguard against bodily damage was the tomb itself. The most elaborate tombs are the pharaohs' pyramids, but other tombs were underground or carved out of the sides of cliffs.

The first tombs were plain-looking flat-roofed buildings called mastabas. They were positioned near each other like houses in a neighborhood. This arrangement was a "city of the dead," or necropolis. Then, someone got the idea to stack a smaller mastaba on top of a larger one, and then an even smaller one on top of that. This was called a step pyramid and it eventually inspired the construction of the bent pyramid and the traditional perfectly geometrical pyramids like those belonging to Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Even the Nubians to the south liked pyramids, in fact there were more pyramids in Nubia than in Egypt! Nubian pyramids were smaller and more pointed than Egyptian pyramids.

Even though a big pyramid was a pretty impressive grave marker, they also attracted tomb robbers by being so obvious. They were almost like giant billboards that said "Hey tomb robbers, there is an important rich person buried here and they have lots of gold with them inside." Then the tomb robbers would break in shortly after burial and steal all the goods left for the mummy.

Later on, the Egyptians decided to stop making pyramids and instead carved their pharaohs' tombs in the sides of the cliffs in an area of southern (Upper) Egypt called The Valley of the Kings. It was very difficult to get to these secret places so it was hoped that the mummies would be safe from tomb robbers.

A person's favorite possessions would be placed with them in the tomb to let the mummy be prepared for the afterlife. King Tut must have really enjoyed his afterlife-- he was set up with hunting weapons, senet game boards, make-up, food, statues, sandals, clothes, models of boats, and lots more!

Ancient Egyptians were agricultural people, and they believed that they would continue farming in the afterlife. But the wealthy, who paid others to do their work for them, didn't plan on spending their afterlives toiling in a field! So these people had small statues called shabtis placed in their tombs, and they believed that the shabtis would serve as their workers in the afterlife.

In the early New Kingdom, one shabti seemed to be enough to guarantee an easy afterlife. But by 1000 BC, Egyptians were being buried with 401 shabtis: one for each day of the year, plus 36 "boss" shabtis to keep the rest of them working!

A preserved body, amulets, a funeral mask, a decorated coffin or even a sarcophagus, a tomb full of goodies, and a bunch of shabtis-- isn't that enough to guarantee that the parts of the soul will live forever in the afterlife? Not quite. Another "must have" was a copy of the Book of the Dead.

It's called a book, but it's really a collection of spells and prayers written on papyrus scrolls. Before the mummy's spirit could reach the afterlife, it had to pass through a dangerous underworld known as Duat. Monsters, cobras, and lakes of fire were some of the dangers found in Duat. Along with the amulets wrapped up in the mummy and the spells painted on the coffin, the Book of the Dead helped the spirit make it safely through this perilous trip.

The ultimate test for the spirit's voyage through Duat was the Weighing of the Heart. This test, as illustrated in the Book of the Dead, shows the dead person's ba anxiously awaiting the results. Anubis checks that the scale is working properly, as the ibis-headed scribe god Thoth stands ready to record the results. The heart of the dead person is weighed against "the feather of truth." If the heart weighs less, the spirit is free to go on to meet Osiris in the afterlife. But if the heart is heavy with sin, it is thrown to Ammit, "the devourer of the dead," who gobbles it up, denying the spirit an afterlife and causing it to cease to exist.

Because most cemeteries were located on the west side of the Nile, a funeral almost always involved crossing the river. The embalmers transported the mummy across the river on a boat, where it was picked up by the mourners on the other side. The mummy would be placed on a boat-shaped sled called a bier. The bier was either pulled by oxen or it was just dragged by people. As the funeral procession made its trip to the tomb, servants carried food and drink, shabtis, the canopic jars, and the mummy's possessions. Several priests walked in the procession too, reciting spells and prayers from the Book of the Dead.

The importance of a person was judged by how many mourners were present at the funeral. Sometimes, families would hire women to mourn at the funeral. They would wave their arms, throw dust in their hair, and weep. The better the performance, the more they were paid!

Once the funeral procession arrived at the tomb, a ceremony called The Opening of the Mouth was performed on the mummy. A priest would touch the mummy's mouth with a special instrument that magically restored the mummy's senses, allowing it to eat, drink, and enjoy its afterlife properly.

Finally, the mummy was placed in its tomb with all its possessions. The mourners would have a feast at the door of the tomb, and waste materials left over from the mummification process would be buried nearby. The mummy, now safe from decay and protected by spells and amulets, would hopefully soon join Osiris in the afterlife!

Navigation: WikiStart | HSOM Library | HSOM Index