Attack of the Archaeologist: Part 1

Attack of the Archaeologist: Part 1

[I credit the Discovery Channel Documentary Unwrapped: Secrets of the Mummies for all the information mentioned below. And if you spot a mistake, sorry. I got to watch it only once. :-]

When one hears the word “Mummy,” one’s mind dredges up images of cadavers wrapped in linen, stored in tombs of great pyramids. Yeah, you got it, Egypt. That’s what people usually associate mummies to. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned (from the Discovery Channel documentary I watched last night), mummies are more than just ancient corpses in the Valley of the Kings.

The first mummies were made six thousand years ago, not by the Egyptians, but by the people on the shores of Peru. That means that the first mummies were made three thousand years before the Pharaoh Djoser ordered royal architect Imhotep to make the first stone structure in the world—the step pyramid.

The people on the shores of Peru were not materialistic, complete opposites of the Egyptians—but I’ll get to that later.

The first mummies were made by stripping the corpse of all organs and muscles. Only the skeleton was left. The parts that were removed were replaced with mud, so that the mummies looked a lot like statues. Families were buried together, in simple caves near the sea. The oldest discovered were a family of three... a mother, a father, and a baby. Archaeologists have discerned that they did these burials not to “assist one into the afterlife,” as the Egyptians believed, but to remain close to each other, even in death.

Three thousand years later, the Egyptians began their own practice of mummification, and a pretty meticulous one at that. It involved removing the brain by breaking the nasal cavity and, well, scrambling the brain matter, and allowing it to run out the nose when the corpse was tilted. Then the internal organs were removed through an incision on the belly about 3 inches wide. The ancient embalmers used a stone called “obsidian” as a scalpel. The organs are then stored in the sacred canopic jars (the ones with Egyptian gods for lids. If you have ever seen “The Mummy,” starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, then you’ve probably seen them.) The next step was to cover the body first in palm oil, then in different spices such as myrrh and frankincense, and last in a substance called “natron,” essentially baking soda. Except they got theirs from around an ancient lake. The corpse was left under the natron for 35 days. By then, there’s just enough moisture in it to manipulate it for wrapping (thus the crossed-arm pose we are familiar with.)

The mummies’ final resting place varied upon social standing. The kings and queens were buried in massive stone structures, commoners in tombs under the sand. The royals of Egypt were buried with their priced possessions... which is probably why they were so popular with grave robbers. This is where the “materialistic” part comes in. They took everything from chariots, crowns, thrones, and sometimes, slaves... to make themselves comfortable in the afterlife. Oh, well, I guess the perception of the afterlife really does vary with time.

Another stereotype with mummies is that they’re old. But there’s a mummy in Russia that isn’t that old... It’s Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the founder of the Russian Communist Party. But it’s technology that made it happen, for Russian scientists are responsible for the remarkable preservation of Lenin’s body. When he died in 1924, politicians decided to preserve his body so that the millions of his followers could pay tribute. The body is still under the care of scientists today, and on display in his private museum.

Personally, I like ancient mummies because they are windows to the past. They’re clues to what the early people believed and did. They are testaments to the human being’s desire to have “life after death.”

Ancient mummies are snatches of a timeless paradox—they were preserved for religion by science. They’re as close to the antediluvian civilizations as we are ever going to get.

:-)