Mummification

Ancient Egypt is a source of fascination for many people and if you ask most people to li= st some features which interest them, mummification will come high on the list. Why is this? Well most of us no doubt will admit to a morbid side to oursel= ves that is fascinated with death because it is a process that we will all experience at some point in the future. Indeed death and mummification form= s a central theme in many books, stories and horror films, where our imagination can run riot. The recent films The Mummy and The Mummy's Return are examples of this, but how accurate do such films and stories portray th= is ancient art? The short answer to this question is not very and we are back to imagination again and the demand for entertainment at the expense o= f an accurate account of ancient customs. This poetic license is fine as far as = it goes but what about those of us who want a more accurate account of what th= is procedure involved? Well not to worry because there are many accurate accou= nts recorded by such notable Greek historians as Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus.

In many ways it is difficult for us to look at the whole question of life and death and to see it in the same context as the Egyptia= ns did. We have to try and discard for the duration our own more recent Judeo/Christian beliefs to get to the truth as they saw it and this is not = an easy exercise you will agree.

Not everyone in ancient times was given the option of bei= ng mummified. Only these close to the Pharaoh or those wealthy enough to be in= a position to pay for this lavish treatment were considered. It was a mark of= a person's esteem as to how he could provide for his own afterlife.

The standard period of embalming lasted seventy days in a= ll. Firstly, the lungs, liver, stomach and intestines were removed and placed in separate vessels called canopic jars.=

From left to right

Duamutef the jackal-headed god, guarded the stomach.

Qebehsenuef the falcon-headed god looked after the intestines.

Hapy the ape-headed god protected the lungs.

Imse= ty the human-heade= d god guarded the liver.

Originally all organs were placed in one jar but this practice changed after the 4^th Dynasty. The heart was the only o= rgan to be left within the body, contrary to popular belief as it was considered= to be the seat of reason, emotion, memory and personality as we attribute to t= he brain today. Dry natron was then used on the bo= dy, both internally and externally for forty days, after which the body was was= hed, packed with linen and resin and finally wrapped with linen bandages. These constitute the main elements of mummification but there were slight variati= ons introduced depending on the era we are talking about. For example during the Middle Kingdom the brain was extracted through the nose, and again dependin= g on the era facial features were adorned by funerary masks in earlier times as opposed to painted wooden panels Faiyum<= i> portraits during the Roman period. When Egyptian society converted to t= he Coptic Christian religion, mummification began to be associated with the old pagan ways and was finally denounced.

Anubis

Anubis the jackal-headed deity the watcher of graveyards and conductor of souls was the god of mummification. He was able to restore life to the murdered body of <= span class=3DSpellE>Osiris by embalming his corpse and wrapping it in lin= en. Osiris was the god of the dead and ruler of the under= world.

As well as fulfilling the needs of the Egyptians as regar= ds belief, duty and ritual, mummification has had some positive spin off value= to our own society today. Thanks to this ancient procedure, we are now able, w= ith the aid of modern techniques and equipment, to observe these mummified corp= ses and to learn a great deal about the way they lived, the state of their heal= th, how they tried to combat diseases and many other interesting facts. This in= the end can only help to increase our store of knowledge and put us in a better position to try and understand more fully this great c= ivilisation.

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