Mummies

1. So what the hell is a mummy?

A lovely woman who makes roast potatoes, clealy. But the terms also refers to the body of a person or animal who has been preserved after death. Usually when you shuffle off this mortal coil, bacteria and other famished germs chow down on your soft tissue, leaving only bones to confirm your existence. Mummifications stops this.

 

2. How come they've been found in France and Peru? They came from Egypt didn't they?

Thought the Egyptians were arguably the daddies when it came to mummies, and the one chilling in a French museum basement was originally from the land of the Pharaohs, numerous other cultures liked to pickle their love ones. In Europe we chucked bodies into bogs to preserve them. While the chinchorros people of Chile were mummifying to an A-Star standard when the Egyptians were still in nappies.

 

3. How exactly do you mummify someone?

European crossed their fingers that the acidity of the water in the bogs and lack of oxygen would preserve them (it worked-the Tollund man from Denmark is 6,000 and still has skin). The Egyptians were a bit more scientific. A large incision was made on the left side of the abdomen to remove the organs, while the brain was pulled out od the nose using hook. Once removed, the organs were wrapped and placed in jars.

 

4. And what about the rest?

After being dried in a bed of salt, the body was washed, stuffed and shaped back to its normal size and open wounds were sealed with wax. Both men and women would be coloured with ochre, before a metal plate decorated with symbols of protection was rested ipon the body. Finally, the cadaver would be wrapped in linen.

 

5. Why bother?

Eternal life. This especially mattered to the Egyptians who belived that without a perfectly preserve body, your soul would be left wandering the afterlife.

 

6. Was it only the rich who got the treatment?

No, the poor were wrapped too - only in quicker, cruder, Tesco value fashion. Plus, in ancient Egypt, our feline brethren got a sour deal. Bred en masse, said cats would have their necks broken before being mummified and sold as offering to the goddness Bast.

 

7. Mummies were also curse, right?

 

 

          Some would agree - if they weren't dead. In 1922, Howard Carter discovered the body of the Tutankhamun in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. People belived there would be dire consequences for those who entered the tomb and sure enough, seven weeks later, the trip's financier Lord Carnarvon died mysteriously. Carter, however, survived dor another 17 years, leding the curse to be called in question... untill Hollywood got on in the act.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. Can you still get mummified?

You certainly can. Although cryogenic freezing has become the in-vogue preservation method, a 30-odd-year-old religion called Summum ( think Scientology but swap aliens for Egypt ) still indulge. The Summum believe that the body has an essence that remains after the physical entity has departed. They've modernised mummification though. Instead of using salt, they submerge the corpse in chemicals. This works so well they claim DNA could be extracted and used to clone you in years to come.

 

 

For Him Magazine

Dec '08