Mummification
Mummification is the process of preserving a body through desiccation, which can occur naturally in dry environments or be performed intentionally by various cultures. This practice has significant historical importance, particularly among ancient civilizations such as the Chinchorro in South America and the Egyptians. The Chinchorro people, dating back to around 5000 BCE, are known for their elaborate mummification techniques, which included dismembering and reconstructing bodies with care, illustrating a deep cultural connection to the deceased. Similarly, ancient Egyptians, starting as early as 3000 BCE, engaged in mummification as part of their beliefs regarding the afterlife, meticulously removing internal organs and using natron to preserve bodies for eternity.
Modern mummification processes have evolved but still echo ancient methods, with notable examples including the embalming of notable figures like Vladimir Lenin and Eva Perón. Additionally, contemporary practices have adapted to include methods like plastination and commercial mummification services, reflecting a continued interest in body preservation. Natural mummification also occurs in extremely dry conditions, exemplified by the discovery of Ötzi the Iceman, whose well-preserved remains provide valuable insights into early human life. Mummification, whether ancient or modern, continues to fascinate researchers and the public alike, highlighting diverse cultural practices surrounding death and memory.
Subject Terms
Mummification
DEFINITION: Process of preserving a body by desiccation.
SIGNIFICANCE: Ancient peoples developed procedures for mummifying human and animal remains, but mummification is also a natural process that can occur if a body is kept in a very dry environment, where putrefaction is retarded. Forensic scientists are sometimes called upon to examine mummified remains.
Putrefaction, or decomposition, begins at death in warm, humid environments and consists of two processes, autolysis and bacterial action. Autolysis, the self-digestion of body tissues, leads to softening and liquefaction. Bacterial action results in the conversion of soft tissues to liquids and gases. If both processes are stopped, mummification will result. As both processes require water and moderate temperatures, dehydrating a body or cooling a body to freezing or below will stop putrefaction and allow mummification to occur. Mummification can take place in very cold environments; in warm, dry air; or in dry, porous earth. The body retains its general shape, but the skin may appear to be shriveled around the skeleton.
Ancient Mummification
The oldest known practice of intentional mummification is attributed to the Chinchorro people of northern Chile around 5000 BCE. They dismembered, disemboweled, and dried the body and then reassembled the skeleton, filling the cavities with straw and reattaching limbs with plant fibers and sticks. Then they covered the body with black mud, which they sculpted into a human form with a face. The resulting hybrid—something between a corpse and a statue—was apparently a way of remembering the dead. Mummification was not reserved for the elite in Chinchorro culture, as many children and even stillborn fetuses were preserved in this way. Subsequently, other South American cultures practiced mummification. Many Incas were deliberately mummified in the dry, cold climate of the Andes mountain range.
The ancient culture most widely known to practice mummification is that of pharaonic Egypt, dating from as early as 3000 BCE. The process of mummifying the dead was tied to the Egyptians’ beliefs about the afterlife and the role of the preserved body as a resting place for the soul. The procedures evolved over time, but they consisted generally of the following. All internal organs were removed, except usually the heart, and the body was filled and covered with natron (a mixture of salts that desiccated the body and inhibited bacterial activity). After approximately forty days, the natron was removed from the corpse and the cavities were filled with resin-impregnated cloth to restore their shapes and then with resin. Finally, the body was wrapped in several layers of linen.
The effectiveness of the process used by the Egyptians is attested to by the preservation of many mummies from ancient times to the present day, including those of pharaohs Ramses II (who died in 1213 BCE) and Tutankhamen (who died around 1323 BCE). Mummification was important to all ancient Egyptians, but only the wealthy could afford the expense of the full process. Animals were also mummified to accompany the dead in the afterlife.
In 1994, Dr. Robert Brier of the University of Maryland Medical School successfully replicated the Egyptian procedure, proving its effectiveness. The preserved body has been maintained for future study.
Modern Mummification
Ever since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, the world has been fascinated with ancient Egypt and its mummies, leading some people to revisit the idea of mummification. The most famous modern mummified remains are those of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the Russian revolutionary, and Eva Perón, the wife of Argentine president Juan Perón. When Lenin died in 1924, his body was embalmed and placed on display at the Kremlin in Moscow. The procedure used remains a state secret and is ongoing, requiring periodic immersion of the remains in a preservative. When Eva Perón died in 1952, she was embalmed and her body fluids were replaced with wax. In both cases, the bodies are so well preserved that they seem lifelike.
In the 1970s, a process known as plastination was developed in which the water and lipids of the body are replaced with silicon, epoxy, and polymers. The result is a very realistic and virtually indestructible “mummy.”
Mummification of people, as well as their pets, was made commercially available in 1975 at Summum, a nonprofit philosophical and spiritual organization in Salt Lake City, Utah. In the procedure Summum uses, the internal organs are removed, washed, and placed back in the body, which is then immersed in a preservative solution. The body is then cleaned and wrapped in cotton gauze, which is covered with a polyurethane membrane and then with fiberglass and resin. Finally, the body is encased in a bronze or stainless-steel casket. This appears to be a modernized version of the ancient Egyptian process.
In 2010, a team of forensic archaeologists mummified a body based on eighteenth-dynasty Egyptian mummification techniques. The process was documented and aired on television as Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret (2011).
Natural Mummification
It is no coincidence that ancient mummification developed in the arid regions of South America and Egypt. Such dry climates retard the putrefaction process and naturally lead to mummification. In such areas, a body buried in sand, which acts as a drying agent, would be desiccated and mummified; one natural mummy, dating from predynastic Egypt around 4000 BCE, is exceedingly well preserved. Natural mummification has also occurred when bodies have been left in very dry environments, such as attics. The absence of the smell that accompanies putrefaction may hide such deaths for many months or years.
One of the more interesting cases of natural mummification is that of the body that has come to be known as Ötzi, sometimes called the Tyrolean Iceman. The remains, with clothes and tools intact, were discovered in 1991 in the Alps and dated to 3300 BCE. Ötzi had apparently fallen into a rocky hollow, where he was covered with snow and his body was preserved as in a deep freeze. Subsequent investigation using multi-slice computed tomography suggested that he was killed by an arrowhead to the back of his left shoulder that severed an artery; he likely bled to death. This mummy continues to provide anthropologists and historians with valuable information about technology, human health, and nutrition in Copper Age Europe.
Bibliography
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Chamberlain, Andrew T., and Michael Parker Pearson. Earthly Remains: The History and Science of Preserved Human Bodies. Oxford University Press, 2001.
"Devon Taxi Driver Alan Billis’s Body in Mummy Test." BBC News, 18 Oct. 2011, www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-15342140. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
"Egyptian Mummies." Smithsonian, www.si.edu/spotlight/ancient-egypt/mummies. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
Fowler, Brenda. Iceman: Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Found in an Alpine Glacier. Random House, 2000.
Garlinghouse, Tom. "Mummification: The Lost Art of Embalming the Dead." LiveScience, 15 July 2020, www.livescience.com/mummification.html. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
Ikram, Salima, and Aidan Dodson. The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity. American University in Cairo Press, 1998.