How to Make a Mummy: Technologies of Ancient Egypt and Today
At first glance, the desire to permanently preserve the body of the deceased seems rather strange. Still, such an idea has overcome millions of people, and sometimes entire nations, for several millennia. We decided to tell you how to make a mummy before, and what technologies exist now.
Ice Man
The most affordable way to long-term storage of the body is a freezer. The oldest undecomposed remains that have survived to our times have been preserved precisely in the thickness of the ice. Ice instantly freezes the body and stops decomposition processes. It is in the regions of the Far North, in the permafrost zone, that the remains of mammoths are periodically found, sometimes quite well preserved. In Europe, even an ice mummy of man was accidentally found. "Iceman," or, as it is called, Otzi, was discovered in the Italian Alps in 1991. Otzi, suddenly caught by the weather, stayed overnight in the mountains. He chose a small cave, which became his last refuge: he froze and died in his sleep. After that, the body remained in perfect condition for 5300 years, until tourists accidentally stumbled upon it. Arriving at the scene, the police handed over the find to archaeologists. Otzi was studied far and wide: his height was 158 cm, weight - about 50 kg. The clothes consisted of a wide loincloth and a leather shirt. A hat made of grass wore on the head of the Ice Man, and a straw cloak on its shoulders. Otzi's leather shoes for heat were densely packed with straw and moss.
Sublimation
Another well-known method is sublimation, that is, rapid dehydration of the product. About ten years ago, meat cooked in this way was sold in stores - it does not deteriorate, weighs almost nothing, and retains its nutritional properties for an almost unlimited time. True, the taste of this product is badly pumped up, and therefore now such meat can be found only in food sets for extreme tourism.
Excellent sublimating properties have a hot, dry climate and hot sand. The human body is 90% water, and it is she who is the “culprit” of decomposition. Ice binds water; hot sand evaporates it. The peoples who lived in a hot climate and buried their dead in the sand provided their bodies with a long afterlife.
The ancient Egyptians were well aware of these properties of sand. In the shallow graves of the dynastic inhabitants of the Nile Valley, the body of the deceased was well-preserved thanks to the dry, hot sand of the desert, which quickly absorbed moisture and dried out the remains that lost more than three-quarters of their weight. Gradually, the funeral ritual became more complicated, and richer tombs appeared, a variety of funerary equipment, and the body itself began to be protected from decomposition artificially, wrapping it with a cloth soaked in the gum.
Death or dream
And why did the Egyptians need well-preserved corpses? The inhabitants of Ancient Egypt imagined death as a special condition characterized by loss of consciousness, respiratory arrest, cessation of movement, decomposition, and, finally, the gradual disappearance of the body. However, at the initial stage, this condition is similar to sleep, fainting, hypnosis, after which a person comes to himself and lives as before. The most significant difference between death and sleep is decay. The Egyptians believed that breathing and movement would sooner or later return to the deceased if they could protect his body from decay. The whole complex process of mummification was aimed precisely at preserving the body of the deceased. Herodotus described the mummification procedure very well in the 5th century.
Herodotus Mummification
“When a dead person is brought to them [embalmers], they show their relatives a choice of wooden painted images of the dead. At the same time, the masters call the best embalming method ... Then they offer the second method, simpler and cheaper, and, finally, the third - the cheapest. Then they interview [relatives] at what price they want to perpetuate the dead man. If the price is similar, the craftsmen get to work. First, they remove the brain through the nostrils with an iron hook. In this way, only part of the brain is removed, while the rest is removed by injecting potions. Then, an incision in the groin is made with a sharp Ethiopian stone, and the entire abdominal cavity is cleaned from the insides. After washing the abdominal cavity with palm wine, the masters again clean it with crushed incense.
Finally, they fill the womb with pure, crushed myrrh, cassia, and other incense (except incense) and sew up it again. After that, the body is put in sodium hydroxide for 70 days. It is impossible to leave the body longer in liquor. After this period, having washed the body, wrap it in a bandage from linen of fine linen cut into ribbons and smear it with gum (it is used instead of glue). After that, the relatives take the body back, make a wooden sarcophagus in the form of a human figure, and place the deceased there.
The coffin with the body is stored in the family tomb, where they put it stand against the wall. In this way, the rich embalm their dead. If relatives have to choose the second method of embalming due to the high cost, then they do this. With the help of a washing tube, cedar oil is injected into the abdomen of a deceased person without cutting; however, the groin and without removing the viscera. Oil is injected through the anus, and then, plugging it so that the oil does not leak out, put the body in sodium hydroxide for a certain number of days. On the last day, oil poured from the intestines is released. It acts so much that it decomposes the stomach and the insides that go out with the oil. Sodium lye decomposes meat so that only skin and bones remain from the deceased. Then the body is returned to [relatives], doing nothing more with it. The third way which embalmed the poor, that's what. Radish juice is poured into the abdominal cavity, and then the body is put in soda liquor for 70 days. After that, the body is returned to the family. ”
The master’s body is afraid
In general, Herodotus was quite accurate. Still, some surviving texts and images suggest that the embalming process was much more complicated than the Egyptians allowed to see and describe to the "father of history." Later, the insides taken during mummification were also impregnated with natron (natural soda from Lake Wadi Natrun), oils and resins, and put in special vessels - canopies. These vessels had lids in the shape of a human head, a baboon, a jackal, and a falcon and corresponded to certain organs of the human body. For the mummy not to deform in the future, the body was stuffed with a cloth saturated with oils and resins, natron, onion and pepper, silt, and some other materials. The skin was smeared with wine, milk, butter, wax, incense, and, again, natron, and the abdominal incision was “sealed” with wax or metal plate adorned with magic symbols protecting the deceased. With the help of herbs and linen, the face and face were given the appearance of a living person, for which sometimes artificial eyes made of glass and stone were inserted into the orbits.
In conclusion, the body was covered with a thin layer of hot resin, painted with red or yellow ocher, and decorated with leaflets of thin gold foil. During the last 15 days of mummification, the body was carefully wrapped in a huge amount of linen. Sometimes relatives brought cloth from the house, which led to curious cases: in 1985, when studying the mummy of an unknown man, stored in the Museum of Natural History of the city of Lyon, it turned out that the diapers that wrapped the body during embalming were actually once sailed - even fragments of a wooden rigging were preserved on it.
From the era of the Middle Kingdom, the head and chest of the mummy began to be covered with a funeral mask. Masks were usually made of cardboard - glued in several layers of papyrus and fabrics coated with a piece (a mixture of lime with sand and limestone) - brightly painted and sometimes gilded. The royal mask was made of gold or silver and was inlaid with precious and semiprecious stones, glass paste. The jewelry burial mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, rightfully considered one of the unique monuments of ancient Egyptian history, testifies to what jewelry masterpieces once covered the faces of most royal mummies.
Smoking
Not only the Egyptians preserved the bodies of their ancestors from decay. The ancient Inca civilization also owned the art of mummification. On the outskirts of Lima, archaeologists have discovered one of the most massive "mummies" warehouses. To date, more than 2000 have been dug up, and in total, according to archaeologists, at least 10,000 mummies in this burial.
The Philippines used the cruelest method of making mummies. Leaders and nobles were preparing for mummification during their lifetime. As soon as the shamans came to the conclusion that the leader would soon depart to another world, they began to give him daily salty drink. It removed excess moisture from internal organs that Filipinos did not remove during embalming. As soon as the beloved leader was dying, the heir blew tobacco smoke in his mouth for disinfection. After all these preparations, the deceased smoked on low heat, collecting dripping moisture - it was considered sacred. And finally, the mummy was dried in the sun in the fetal position. At the end of the ritual ceremonies, a high-ranking deceased was placed in a cave.
Russian technology
Mummies are also found in Russia. When excavating mounds in the Pazyryk tract, the preserved mummies of the leaders of the Altai Scythians were found. The age of these mummies is approximately 2500 years. For their preservation, the Scythians, in addition to embalming, used cold - a specially made log-house was filled with ice. The first mummy found archaeologists called the "Altai Princess." She was tall, with European features, dressed in fine clothes made of thin silk, decorated with gold and bronze jewelry. In her cemetery was everything that could be needed in the afterlife - kitchen utensils, teams, food supplies, even horses.
Standing apart are the remains of the ascetics of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. These relics are imperishable, although they were not subjected to special embalming. It is assumed that their safety is due to the special dry air of the caves.
In modern history, the embalming of the deceased leaders of communist states was practiced. The first experience of this kind was embalming the body of Lenin. The scientists were faced with the task not only of mummifying the body of the leader but of preserving the appearance of the deceased the same as in life. The embalming process took four months; in addition, weekly, the face and hands of the deceased were treated with a special composition, and once a year, the body was immersed for a month in a liquid that prevents its drying and decomposition. Subsequently, the bodies of George Dimitrov, Clement Gottwald, Ho Chi Minh, Agostinho Neto, and Cheddy Jagan were subjected to similar processing.
Silicone mummies
The most advanced method of mummification to date was invented in 1977 by a native of the GDR, and now professor of Heidelberg University, Gunter von Hagens. His method is to impregnate the body with a biopolymer (silicone) using a vacuum. First, the corpse is placed in ice acetone, and during diffusion, water in the tissues is replaced by acetone. Then the body, saturated with acetone, is immersed in a biopolymer. Acetone is evacuated by vacuum, being replaced in the tissues with silicone. The finished silicone mummy is covered with a preparation that allows the body to remain almost forever. Hagens' mummies look almost like works of art and are exhibited around the world at the traveling exhibitions “Body World,” which were visited by more than 12 million people.