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Mummy

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Mummy (sˁḥ)
in hieroglyphs

A mummy is a corpse whose skin and dried flesh have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold or dryness, or airlessness.

Types of mummies

Intentionally prepared "ritualistic" mummies

The best-known mummies are those that have been deliberately embalmed with the specific purpose of preservation, particularly those in ancient Egypt. Egyptian culture believed the body was home to a person's Ka which was essential in one's afterlife. In Egypt, the abdomens were opened and many organs were removed. The emptied body was then covered in natron, to speed up the process of dehydration, and to prevent decomposition.

In China, preserved corpses have been recovered from submerged cypress coffins packed with medicinal herbs.

Naturally preserved mummies

Mummies formed as a result of naturally occurring environmental conditions, such as extreme cold (Ötzi the Iceman), acid (Tollund Man) or desiccating dryness have been found all over the world. Some of the best-preserved mummies formed under natural conditions date from the Inca period in Peru.

Etymology

The English word mummy is derived from mediaeval Latin mumia, a borrowing of the Arabic word mūmiyyah (مومية), which means "bitumen". (Because of the blackened skin of unwrapped mummies, bitumen was once thought to be used extensively in ancient Egyptian embalming procedures. Asphalt and tar are forms of bitumen.) The Arabic word was itself borrowed from the Persian word mūmiya, meaning "bitumen"; this is related to another Persian word, mūm, which means "wax". (The ancient Greek historians record that the Persians sometimes mummified their kings and nobility in wax, though this practice has never been documented in Egypt.)

Mummies in ancient Egypt

In Egypt, the dead were originally not mummified with the extensive process that happened during the first dynasty. The dead were originally buried in reed caskets in the sand. The searing hot sand caused the remains to dry quickly, preventing decomposition. Later, they started constructing wooden tombs, and the extensive process of mummification was developed to assure that the bodies would not decompose in the afterlife. The mummified individual was placed at his/her final resting place through a set of rituals and protocol.

The earliest known 'mummified' individual dates back to approximately 3300 BC, although it is not an intentionally renowned mummy, such as, Rameses II or Seti I. This virtual unknown mummy is on display in the British Museum and has been given the nickname of 'Ginger' because he has red hair. Ginger was buried in the hot desert sand, possibly with stones piled on top to prevent the corpse being eaten by jackals. The hot, dry conditions desiccated and preserved the body. Ginger was buried with some pottery vessels, which would have held food and drink to sustain him on his journey to the other world. There are no written records of the religion from that time, but it likely resembled the later religion to some extent. The desert conditions were a fact of life "and death", so, in any case, some physical preservation would be natural.

From the first dynasty onwards, the ancient Egyptians were, unmistakably trying to preserve the bodies of the dead, so their spirit had a body to guide them to the afterlife.

The Egyptians also expanded the practice of mummification to animals. Sacred animals central to cults such as ibis, hawks, alligators and cats were mummified by the thousands.

Historical context of Egyptian mummies

The dry climate of Egypt has always aided the preservation of mummies, as it is in one of the world's driest regions. In pre-dynastic times, many bodies became "natural mummies". These buried corpses could be found generations later in a good state of preservation. Well-preserved dried bodies were not something that society admired aesthecially, so early on, they began to "clean-up" the process by wrapping the bodies in very strong linen strips. At the same time, they began to remove the internal organs to assure that the mummy would not decompose from the inside out, and would remain presentable to the gods and future generations. There is no iconic heritage in Egypt for the gruesome or the macabre. Death was meant to be "literally beautiful". Mummies continued to be prepared and wrapped, as a "presentable package" well into the Christian era.

Egyptian Mummies as Historical Art

Very different from the study of mummies as preserved human bodies, is the study of mummy wrappings, and cases, and attached painted portraits, as objects of art. The early mummies reflect the style of the Dynastic era. Late mummies can be identified by the cultural evolution as other nations conquered Egypt (i.e. Nubia, Greece) and imposed some stylistic influence. Very late mummies, in the Roman & Christian times (up to 250 C.E.) actually had life-like facial portraits painted on a flattened area above the face of the deceased. These mummy "likenesses" are widely considered the highest attainment of portrait painting in the Roman era world.

Egyptian mummification process

Mummified bull at the National Museum of Natural History

Embalmers were given the task to preserve the deceased. Not only did their job require knowledge of human anatomy, they also had to perform rituals at several stages during the process. It is noteworthy that the Egyptians themselves considered embalming so sacred and secret that no record of the process comes from them but only from foreign observers.

Soon after a person died, their body was rushed to the embalmer to prevent early decay. A typical mummification took 70 days in which craftsmen raced to finish the tomb.

The first step in Egyptian mummification was the removal of all internal organs which are prone to rapid decay. The brain was removed by breaking the bone at the end of the nose with a chisel and inserting a special hook up the nostrils and into the skull. The hook was swished around, breaking down the brain. The now-liquified brain was poured out of the skull through the nose by tipping the head to its side.

Mummified cat from ancient Egypt. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Embalmers also removed the stomach, liver, lungs and intestines through a small incision on the left side of the abdomen. According to Herodotus, the man whose job it was to cut the incision was then chased away, for it was thought that the human body was sacred and it was a crime to harm it. The heart was left in place because it was thought to be the centre of the body. The organs which were removed from the abdomen were stored in so called canopic jars, modelled after the four sons of Horus, who would protect the organs, and place them in the tomb during the burial ritual. It was believed the person would need these organs to live in the afterlife. Because the function of the brain was not known at the time, it was discarded. In later dynasties, the abdominal organs were treated and wrapped and returned to the body, but unused canopic jars continued to be placed into tombs.

The body was then washed with palm wine. Because of its high alcohol content, it would kill much of the bacteria that had already begun to reproduce.

Next, all moisture would be removed from the body by inserting linen-wrapped pouches of natron (a type of salt found on the banks of Lake Wadi Natrun) into the abdominal cavity through the incision. The rest of the body was then covered with natron and left in the heat. The result was a dried-out, but recognizable body. The abdominal incision was then covered with a metal plate bearing the Eye of Horus (wedjat) which symbolically healed it.

Finally, the body was wrapped in large amounts of linen, some of which contained spells to help the deceased in their passage to the afterlife. After several stages of wrapping, the body would also be coated in warm resin, before wrapping was continued. The coatings of resin would ensure that the linen wrappings stayed in place. The resins likely included frankincense and myrrh.

To further protect the deceased, magical amulets were placed on specific parts of the body between the layers of wrappings. These included:

  • Ankh
  • Scarab
  • Djed-Djed pillar
  • Pectoral
    Mummy and mummy cases

Egyptian burial rituals

Finally, the mummy would be interred in varying ways that were dictated by the social status of the deceased. Relatively low-status individuals would simply be mummified and laid in a simple tomb or on a ledge in a larger tomb. Higher-status individuals would be interred in an elaborately decorated case, though perhaps not a stone sarcophagus. The highest-status individuals, such as pharaohs, would be interred in a set of nesting mummy cases and sarcophagi, which were often extremely elaborate. Perhaps the most important burial ritual was the opening of the mouth ceremony. This consisted of a priest touching the mouth of the mummy or mummy case with a hooked stick, symbolically opening the mouth of the mummy so that it could breathe and speak in the next life.

Mummies in other civilizations

A mummified body displayed in the British Museum.

A number of other civilizations are known to have practised the art of mummification.

Chinese mummy

Main article: Tarim mummies

Chinese mummies of an Indo-European type have been found in the Tarim Basin dating to as early as 1600 BC and suggesting very ancient contacts between East and West. It has been suggested that these mummified remains may have been the work of the ancestors of the Tocharians whose Indo-European language remained in use in the Tarim Basin (Modern day Xinjiang in China) until the 8th century AD (see Silk Road: Tocharians).

An ancient mummy dubbed the "handsome Yingpan man" was found in China's remote northwest province of Xinjiang. Archaeologists from the Xinjiang Archeological Institute found the mummified body when they opened a coffin in a graveyard dating back 1,900 years, according to Xinhua news agency. The mummy had thick brown hair, a shrunken face and body, and gray and brown skin. Its beard, eyebrows and eyelashes were clearly discernible and its clothes were intact and retained their bright color.

The mummified man, believed to have lived during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD), was 1.8 meters (nearly six feet) tall and might have died at about 25 years of age. His coffin, which had colorful paintings on the outside, was discovered together with over 150 ancient tombs dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty at Yingpan near Lop Nur in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. This coffin along with five others had been shipped to Urumqi, the regional capital, and were kept in the institute, unopened, for three years. The mummy is believed to be significant for the study of economic and cultural exchanges between China and Western countries in ancient times.

The "handsome Yingpan man" is thought to be comparable to the "beautiful Loulan woman," a 3,800-year-old female mummy discovered in 1980 at the Tiebanhe Delta, about 200 kilometers east of Yingpan, said the report. Loulan was an ancient kingdom along China's Silk Road in Xinjiang, about 200 kilometers east of Yingpan.

Natural mummies

Natural mummification is fairly rare, due to the requirement for certain specific conditions, but it has produced some of the oldest known mummies. The most famous ancient mummy is Ötzi the Iceman, frozen in a glacier in the Ötztal Alps around 3300 BC and found 1991. An even older but less well preserved mummy was found in Spirit Cave, Nevada in 1940 and carbon-dated to around 7400 BC.

Britain, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark have all produced a number of bog bodies, mummies of people deposited in sphagnum bogs apparently as a result of murder or ritual sacrifices. In such cases, the acidity of the water, the cold temperature and the lack of oxygen combine to tan the body's skin and preserve the skeleton. Such mummies are remarkably well preserved, with skin and internal organs surviving as well as skeletons; it is even possible to determine what their last meal was by examining their stomach contents.

In 1972, eight remarkably preserved mummies were discovered at an abandoned Inuit settlement called Qilakitsoq, in Greenland. The "Greenland Mummies" consisted of a six-month old baby, a four year old boy, and six women of various ages, who died around 500 years ago. Their bodies were naturally mummified by the sub-zero temperatures and dry winds in the cave in which they were found.

Some of the best-preserved mummies date from the Inca period in Peru some 500 years ago, where children were ritually sacrificed and placed on the summits of mountains in the Andes. The cold, dry climate had the effect of dessicating the corpses and preserving them virtually intact for centuries.

Mummies in recent times

File:Jbentham.600px.jpg
The "auto-icon" of Jeremy Bentham at University College London

Mummies have been an object of intense interest in the West since archaeologists began finding them in large numbers. 19th-century aristocrats would often entertain themselves by buying mummies, having them unwrapped, and holding observation sessions. These sessions destroyed several mummies, because the exposure to the air caused them to disintegrate.

In the 1830s Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, left instructions to be followed upon his death which led to the creation of a sort of modern-day mummy. He asked that his body be displayed to illustrate how the "horror at dissection originates in ignorance"; once so displayed and lectured about, he asked that his body parts be preserved, including his skeleton (minus his skull, for which he had other plans), which was to be dressed in the clothes he usually wore and "seated in a Chair usually occupied by me when living in the attitude in which I am sitting when engaged in thought." His body, outfitted with a wax head created because of problems preparing his head as Bentham requested, is on display in the University College London.

Egyptian mummies were much sought-after by museums worldwide in the 19th and early 20th centuries and many exhibit mummies today. Notably fine examples are exhibited at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, at the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin, and at the British Museum in London. The Egyptian city of Luxor is also home to a specialised Mummification Museum. The mummified remains of what turned out to be Ramesses I ended up in a "Daredevil Museum" near Niagara Falls on the United States–Canada border; records indicate that it had been sold to a Canadian in 1860 and exhibited alongside displays such as a two-headed calf for nearly 140 years, until a museum in Atlanta, Georgia, which had acquired the mummy along with other artifacts, determined it to be royal and returned it to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. It is currently on display in the Luxor Museum.

Mummy in the British Museum

Mummies were also believed to have medicinal properties, and were sold as pharmaceuticals in powdered form. However, they were not used as fuel for steam locomotives, and the idea that they were came from a joke by Mark Twain. However, during the First World War, mummy wrapping linens were manufactured into paper.

Science has also taken notice of mummies. Dr. Bob Brier, an Egyptologist, has been the first modern scientist to successfully recreate a mummy using the Egyptian method. Mummies have been used in medicine, to calibrate CAT scan machines at levels of radiation that would be too dangerous for use on living people. In fact, mummies can be studied without unwrapping them using CAT scan and X-ray machines to form a picture of what's inside.

They have been very useful to biologists and anthropologists, as they have provided a wealth of information about the health and life expectancy of ancient peoples. In particular, mummies have demonstrated that even 5,000 years ago, humans were anatomically indistinguishable from their present-day counterparts. This has had important repercussions for the study of human evolution.

Scientists interested in cloning DNA of mummies have recently reported findings of clonable DNA in an Egyptian mummy dating to circa 400 BC. Although analyzing the hair of Ancient Egyptian mummies from the Late Middle Kingdom has revealed evidence of a stable diet [1], Ancient Egyptian mummies from circa 3200 BC show signs of severe anemia and hemolitic disorders [2].

Artists also made use of mummies during the late 1800's, in the form of paint. The brownish paint was called "Caput Mortum", latin for "Dead Head", made from the wrappings of mummies.

In 1975, an esoteric organization by the name of Summum introduced "Modern Mummification," a form of mummification that Summum claims uses modern techniques along with aspects of ancient methods. Summum has been featured on shows by National Geographic and the British Broadcasting Corporation and is even mentioned in the book, The Scientific Study of Mummies, by Arthur C. Aufderheide. Summum has mummified numerous pets such as birds, cats, and dogs. People were mummified early on when they developed their process and many have made personal "pre-need" arrangements.

In March 2006, the body of the Greek Orthodox Monk Vissarion Korkoliacos was found intact in his tomb, after fifteen years in grave. The event had as a result a dispute between those who spoke about a miracle and those who claimed the possibility of natural mummification. However, the scientific research did not come to an end until today and as a result of this any opinion on the matter could not be characterized as definitive.

Mummies in fiction

During the 20th century, horror films and other mass media popularized the notion of a curse associated with mummies. Films representing such a belief include the 1932 film The Mummy starring Boris Karloff, as well as two remakes, one released in 1959 and another in 1999. The belief in cursed mummies probably stems in part from the supposed curse on the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Famous mummies

Mummy of Pharaoh Ramesses II

From Egypt

Others

See also

References

Books

  • Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. 1999. The Mummies of Ürümchi. 1999. London. Pan Books. Also: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393045218.
  • Budge, E.A.Wallis. 1925. The Mummy, A Handbook of Egyptian Funerary Archaeology. Dover Publ. Inc., New York, Dover Ed. 1989, (512 pgs.) ISBN 0486259285.
  • Davis-Kimball, Jeannine, with Behan, Mona. 2002. Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines. Warner Books, New York. First Trade Printing, 2003. ISBN 0446679836.
  • Mallory, J. P. and Mair, Victor H. 2000. The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. Thames & Hudson. London. 2000. ISBN 0500051011.
  • Pringle, Heather. 2001. Mummy Congress: Science, Obssession, and the Everlasting Dead. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-028669-1.
  • Taylor, John H. 2004. Mummy: the inside story. The British Museum Press. ISBN 0-7141-1962-8.

Online

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