Return to my Egyptology pages
Go to my home page
© Copyright 1998, Jim Loy
The word "mummy" apparently comes from Arabic, and more recently from French. An Egyptian mummy is a dead body which was preserved mainly by drying out, mainly due to the dry climate of Egypt. The embalmers used natron (sodium carbonate and other sodium compounds) to help dry out the body. They removed the internal organs, which tend to produce gasses which cause bloating which may even break through the skin of the body. These internal organs were placed in large Canopic Jars, which were shaped like animals (see addendum below), and which were placed near the body. They coated the skin of the body with a resin, which made the skin hard and brown. They wrapped the body in stips of cloth, sometimes miles of cloth.
But the mummy's brain was not considered important, and it was thrown away. The thinking process was considered a function of the heart, not the brain. How did they remove the brain? They pulled it out through the nose, using a long wire with a hook on one end. Sometimes they removed it in other ways.
Addendum:
The Canopic Jars had lids in the form of the heads of the four sons of Horus. They were these:
Son of Horus form contents ------------ ---- -------- Imset man liver Hapy baboon lungs Duamutef jackal stomach Qebehsenuf hawk intestines
The heart was left in the body. Not only kings were embalmed. There is a story that Egyptologists once found a small coffin which was obviously that of a child. They instead found the remains of an adult man inside. The embalmers had broken his legs to fit him inside the small coffin. The Egyptologists deduced that the man had not been able to afford a larger coffin. Animals were also mummified.