Mummies
To live forever, it was absolutely necessary to prevent the dead
body from decaying, since the parts of the soul still had a need
for it. Three of the more well-known forms of the spirit were
the ba, the ka, and the akh. It was believed that the ramheaded creator god Khnum sculpted babies and all the parts of
their souls from clay.
The ba was the personality. It was shown as a bird with a
human head- in particular, the head of the person to which it
belonged. The ka was the life force, like our modern definition
of a soul, and it looked exactly like its person. Sometimes a
statue modeled after the deceased would be placed in the tomb
with the mummy. These "ka statues" were something of an
emergency back-up, to make sure the ka had a substitute body
to belong to in case something should happen to the mummy.
In addition to a recognizable body, the ka also needed food to
survive. When Egyptians left food and water at the tomb, they
were leaving it for the ka. The akh was represented by a type
of bird called a crested ibis. At death, the akh flew to the stars
to spend eternity in the heavens.
Oldest Mummy
• 'Ginger' is believed to be
the earliest known ancient
Egyptian "mummified"
body, being Late Predynastic
and dating to approximately
3300 BC. The body, which
lies in a fetal position and is
nicknamed 'Ginger' because
of its red hair, is not
internationally renowned
despite being older than
other more famous
mummies, such as those of
Rameses II or Seti I.
Mummification – Step 1
• Purification of the
body
• Ceremonial washing
on the west bank of
the Nile
Mummification –Step 2
• A priest dressed in the
jackal head costume
representing Annubis
chants over the body
before the rippers
remove the internal
organs
• The organs would be
saved in canopic jars!
The Sons of Horus
• Baboon – Lungs Hapy
• Jackal – Stomach Duamutef
• Human – Liver Imsety
• Falcon – Intestines Qebehsenuef
• Heart: pickled and returned to the
mummy
The Brain
• The Brain was
removed with a
knitting needle like
hook inserted through
the left nostril.
• It was pulled out and
discarded since the
Egyptians felt the
center of life was the
Heart.
Mummification tools:
Brain hooks
Oil jar
Funnel
(replica)
Embalmer's knife
(Royal Ontario Museum)
Step 3 – Packing and Salting
• After the removal of
the internal organs,
every drop of moisture
was removed from the
body.
• The chest cavity was
packed and the body
covered in natron a
natural salt.
Natron: Sodium carbonate and Sodium bicarbonate
• For forty days of the
70 day mummification
process efforts were
made to make sure all
water was out of the
body to prevent molds,
fungus, and bacteria
from growing.
• After 40 days the body
was ready for the final
processing
Plumping and Painting – Step 5
• The shriveled blackened
corpse was plumped up
like a pillow after a nights
sleep.
• The body was than
covered with resin and
painted.
• Red ochre for Men
• Yellow ochre for Women
Wrapping – Step 6
• After being plumped
and painted, the
mummy was wrapped
in the sacred linens of
Osiris just as Isis had
done.
• As much as 3850 sq.
feet of wrap was used.
Wrapping took 15+ Days!
• Beginning with the
head the body was
wrapped in layers.
• Each layer was
covered with resins to
seal it.
Portrait Mask – Step 7
• A red shroud is placed
over the head and
painted on it is a
portrait of the dead
person.
• In the New Kingdom,
finely detailed wax
masks and beautiful
sarcophaguses were
used.
Amulets of the New Kingdom
• Gold sheathing might
cover the toes as it did on
King Tut.
• Jewelry and Sacred
amulets would be added
at this time.
• Teeth would reattached
or added
• Name tags would be
place on the mummy
Burial – Step 8
In the final step, the priest
dressed as Annubis opens the
mummies mouth. This
awakens the senses and
allows the soul to return to
the body.
• After the 70 Day
preparation process,
actual burial would
take place.
• A procession with
professional
mourners, food,
family and priests
went to the tomb.
Journey of the Soul
• The spirit of the person now
journeyed through the
underworld on its trip to
judgment before Osiris.
A long hook is used to smash the
brain and pull it out through the
nose.
One of the embalmer's men makes a cut in the left side of the
body and removes many of the internal organs. It is important
to remove these because they are the first part of the body to
decompose.
The liver, lungs, stomach and intestines are washed and
packed in natron which will dry them out. The heart is not
taken out of the body because it is the centre of intelligence
and feeling and the man will need it in the afterlife.
The body is now covered and stuffed with natron which will
dry it out. All of the fluids, and rags from the embalming
process will be saved and buried along with the body.
After forty days the body is washed again with water from the Nile. Then it is
covered with oils to help the skin stay elastic.
The dehydrated internal organs are wrapped
in linen and returned to the body. The body
is stuffed with dry materials such as
sawdust, leaves and linen so that it looks
lifelike.
Finally the body is covered again with good-smelling oils. It
is now ready to be wrapped in linen.
Imsety the humanheaded god looks
after the liver.
Duamutef the
jackal-headed
god looks after
the stomach.
In the past, when the internal
organs were removed from a
body they were placed in
hollow canopic jars.
Over many years the
embalming practices changed
and embalmers began
returning internal organs to
bodies after the organs had
been dried in natron. However,
solid wood or stone canopic
jars were still buried with the
mummy to symbolically protect
the internal organs.
Hapy the baboonheaded god looks after
the lungs.
Qebehsenuef the
falcon-headed god
looks after the
intestines.
http://www.summum.org/mummification/
Entrance to an Egyptian Mestaba.
Tomb painting illuminated by skylight within a Mestaba.
Royal burial – Valley of the Kings Luxor, Egypt – Middle Kingdom.
Egyptian Burial Jewelry – Middle & New Kingdoms of Egypt.
Wooden sarcophaguses of the later New Kingdom
and early Decline of Egypt.
Child’s mummy and sarcophagus.
Unwrapped head of a mummy.
Note the layers of wrappings and the final
RESINS that cover the layers of wrapping.
Typical Egyptian bed.
Nice pillow!!
Sled, Rope,
& Pyramid Block!
Mummies of the World
• Italy
• Iceman, (Otzi)
• 3300 BC
Bog Bodies
• The United Kingdom, the Republic of
Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands,
Sweden and Denmark have produced a
number of bog bodies, mummies of
people deposited in sphagnum bogs,
apparently as a result of murder or
ritual sacrifices.
• The Haraldskær Woman is an Iron Age
bog body.
• Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II
and Pete Marsh
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nov
a/bog/iron-nf.html
South America
• Some of the best-preserved
mummies date from the Inca
period in Peru and Chile some
500 years ago, where children
were ritually sacrificed and
placed on the summits of
mountains in the Andes.
• Ice Maiden, Momia Juanita
Spanish for "Mummy Juanita"
• between 12-14 years old, who
died sometime between 1440
and 1450.
Russia
• The most famous undisturbed Pazyryk burial so
far recovered is the "Ice Maiden" found by
archaeologist Natalia Polosmak in 1993, a rare
example of a single woman given a full
ceremonial wooden chamber-tomb in the 5th
century BC, accompanied by six horses. It had
been buried over 2,400 years ago in a casket
fashioned from the hollowed-out trunk of a
larch tree.
North America
•Qilakitsoq is an archaeological site on the
southwestern shore of the Nuussuaq
Peninsula in western Greenland. Formally a
settlement, it is famous for the discovery of
eight mummified bodies in 1972. The
bodies were found in an icy tomb and date
to the 15th century AD.
Ancient Egyptian pyramid
Worker – age 2550 BC.
Bribe paid to tomb worker to visit Field Museum’s Egyptian display!