This past Fall Break, I made a visit to New York’s Metropolitan Museum, which is home to a massive collection of ancient Egyptian archeological artifacts, including mummies and the containers that held them. As I wandered through the Egyptian exhibit, I found myself wondering: why mummify? And how?
In Egypt particularly, mummification was also a religious ritual, involving symbols and steps to honor specific beliefs. From a purely surgical standpoint, though, the process of mummification in ancient Egypt was very standardized. The first step was to remove the brain, always through the nose. Some sources say that the brain was removed in chunks, while others explain that a metal hook was used to liquefy it while it was still in the skull, and then it was drained out of the nose. In either case, the brain was not saved in any way, and the integrity of the face was prioritized during the procedures. Then, all internal organs were removed through a cut in the side of the body, and some, like the gut and the liver, were stored in what were called canopic jars that were buried alongside the mummy. The heart was never removed, as it was believed that it was the seat of the soul and should stay with the person into the afterlife.
The body, now hollow, was dried using a salt called natron. The goal was to desiccate the body completely so that no moisture would remain. The importance of this step can be explained by more detailed biology, which the Egyptians may or may not have known about. It has been hypothesized that their desert climate helped clue them in to the importance of dryness in burials.
The body is made up of cells, which are essentially tiny bags of water that contain proteins, enzymes, and DNA helping your body do all the amazing things it does while it’s alive and keeps it soft and in motion. The catch is that cells need oxygen to do their jobs, and when they don’t have oxygen, there are evolutionary mechanisms that kick in to help return all that good but unused biological matter back to the earth. Namely, when carbon dioxide accumulates in tissues of the body (since it is not being breathed out by the person who is dead), it causes a pH change that triggers the cells to burst open, releasing all the enzymes inside of them out into the world.
This is where our problem begins. The enzymes can start to snack on the tissue around them, opening up new areas to the air, including bacteria that was previously stored in the body, which creates a bad smell. As the enzymes do their job, they are able to slowly break down all the tissues and cells in the body to their original components, liquefying the entire body. This is decay.
If we seek to avoid decay, then we must ensure that we preserve all of the things that make up cells except for the water inside of them. Without water, the cells will not be able to undergo the pH change or “notice” that there is no oxygen; therefore, they will not be able to burst open because there will be no water inside of them to carry the enzymes out. However, all of the other tissue and basic structural matter will be left behind, resulting in a well-preserved body. This same principle applies in many ways to embalming, where the water in a body is replaced with other chemicals to temporarily prevent it from decaying while funeral services are happening.
The Egyptians, whether they knew it or not, lived in perfect conditions to dry out such a large amount of tissue, and they were skilled at the process. After drying was complete, they wrapped mummies in large quantities of linen. They sometimes used resin over the body itself or between the linens. They would then place the mummy in some combination of a mask, sarcophagus, coffin, and burial chamber decorated with important symbols for transportation into the afterlife.
Egyptians were not the only group to perform mummification on their dead. Mummies have been found on every continent, and throughout many periods of time. The methods of mummification seem to rely partially on the location and climate of the people. Some of the oldest mummies have been found in Chile, where they removed the organs and brains from a body, dried it, stuffed it with plants and sticks, and adorned it with masks, wigs, and paint — almost 7000 years ago. However, in China, a mummy from the Han dynasty was found entombed in embalming fluid, meaning that the tissue and hair was still completely soft. Occasionally, “accidental” mummies have been found — dead bodies that were buried naturally under just the right environmental conditions to preserve their remains for a millenia, like the famous Otzi the Iceman who was preserved in a glacier from the Alps in Italy. There have even been records of living mummies; in Japan Yamagata monks started the process of their own mummification by eating a diet of only tree matter to remove the fat from their bodies. They then stopped eating and drank only salt water until they were weak enough to be buried alive. After they died and a period of time had passed, their tomb would be opened to check for signs of decay and an exorcism would be performed if decay was found.
While much of this seems unthinkable in our times, mummification was an important cultural process in many contexts and represents a unified attitude towards death that is uncommon now. However, mummification is still practiced in some places; even Lenin was mummified. So, next time you think about pulling out a spare roll of toilet paper to make your mummy Halloween costume, consider the rich historical diversity of mummification — maybe you could even dress up as a person trapped in ice!
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