Mummies

This is a story I wrote last week after reading a book on Mummies and Ancient Egypt…


Hello, I am an Embalmer. I help make corpse’s last a long time. How do I do it? First we put the body face up on an embalming table. Then we take out the soft organs that encourage bacteria. Then we carefully pull the brain out of the nostrils with an embalming hook, making sure not to do anything to the persons face. Then the chief embalmer cuts a hole in the left side of the person’s stomach then we take all the organs out except the heart. The heart is an important part of the mummification. Then we wash the body thoroughly in palm wine. When the body starts to stink, we fill the body with sweet smelling spices mixed with natron (a type of salt) and leave the body for 40 days. After the 40 days are up, we remove the natron and we fill the body with linen and rub the body with more sweet smelling spices mixed with wax and oil. Then we pour a sticky resin all over it. After that we apply makeup, and jewellery if the person was rich. Then we wrap the body up in linen, with the more expensive linen on the outside. We’re done! I hope you enjoyed the little tour of making mummies!

Bye!

Original story by Hope Read

Embalming

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Embalming, in most modern cultures, is the art and science of temporarily preserving human remains to forestall decomposition and make it suitable for display at a funeral. The three goals of embalming are thus preservation, sanitization and presentation (or restoration) of a dead body to achieve this effect. Embalming has a very long and cross-cultural history, with many cultures giving the embalming processes a great religious meaning. Embalming is not usually required in several countries, including the United States of America, although embalming have a closed casket funeral if the deceased was killed by a disease.

History of embalming

Mummies were the results of ancient Egyptian embalming

Embalming has been practiced in many cultures and is one of the earliest surgical procedures humanity undertook. In classical antiquity, perhaps the Old World culture that had developed embalming to the greatest extent was that of ancient Egypt, who developed the process of mummification. They believed that preservation of the mummy empowered the soul after death, which would return to the preserved corpse.

Other cultures that had developed embalming processes include the Incas and other cultures of Peru, whose climate also favoured a form of mummification.