Mummy, Ancient Egypt - probably everyone heard about it. So many millennia have swept over the gray arrays of tombs and pyramids, and they still attract and fascinate people from all over the world. Mysteriousness, gloom, an extraordinary flourishing of crafts, developed medicine, exquisite culture and rich mythology - all this makes the ancient country alive and interesting.
Why were the dead mummified
It must be said that the mummies of Ancient Egypt (photos of many of them make you shudder) are a separate phenomenon that still causes heated debate. Can they be exhibited in museums? After all, after all, these are still the bodies of the dead … Be that as it may, tourists in many countries of the world can go and look at long-dead people, whose earthly shells are partially saved from the corrupting influence of time. Why were they created? The fact is that the ancients believed in the existence of a person after death directly at the place of his burial. That is why luxurious tombs and pyramids were builtfor kings who filled with everything that could be useful to them after death. And for the same reason, the Egyptians tried to save the very body of the deceased from destruction. Mummification was invented for this.
The process of creating a mummy
Mummification is the preservation of a corpse with the help of special techniques and preparations while maintaining the integrity of its outer shell. Already in the times of the 2nd and 4th dynasties, the bodies began to be wrapped with bandages, preserving from decomposition. Over time, the mummy (Ancient Egypt succeeded in creating them) began to be made much more complicated and sophisticated: the insides were removed from the body, and special plant and mineral preparations were used for conservation. It is believed that during the 18th and 19th dynasties, the art of mummification reached its true peak. At the same time, it must be said that the mummy (Ancient Egypt created a lot of them) could be made in several ways, which differed in complexity and cost.
Historian testimonies
Historian Herodotus says that the embalmers interviewed the relatives of the deceased, offered them a choice of several methods for preserving the body. If an expensive option was chosen, then the mummy was made in this way: first, a part of the brain was removed (through the nostrils using an iron hook), a special solution was injected, the abdominal organs were cut out, the body was washed with palm oil and rubbed with incense. The abdomen was filled with myrrh and other fragrant substances (incense was not used) and sutured. The body was placed for seventy days in soda lye, then taken out and wrapped in bandages, lubricated with gum instead of glue. Everything, the finished mummy (Ancient Egypt shows a lot of them) was given to relatives, placed in a sarcophagus and kept in a tomb.
If the relatives could not pay for the expensive method of conservation and chose the cheaper one, the craftsmen did the following: the organs were not cut out, just cedar oil was injected into the body, decomposing everything inside, and the corpse itself was also placed in lye. After a certain period of time, the withered and devoid of entrails body was returned to relatives. Well, a very cheap method, for the poor, is injection of radish juice into the stomach and after lying in lye (the same 70 days) - return to relatives. True, Herodotus did not know or did not describe a couple of important points. Firstly, scientists are still not very clear how the Egyptians managed to dry the body, doing it extremely skillfully. Secondly, the heart was never removed from the body, and the rest of the insides were placed in special vessels stored in the tomb next to the mummy.
The end of mummification
It must be said that mummification was preserved in Egypt for a very long time and was practiced even after the introduction of Christianity. According to the doctrines of Christianity, the body does not need to be preserved after death, but the priests could not inspire this in their flock. Only Islam, which came later, put an end to the creation of mummies. Now a photo of the mummy of Egypt certainly adorns the catalog of any major museum that has a department of this ancient state.
