LOST ART OF MUMMY MAKING

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 28 April 1934, Page 14

LOST ART OF MUMMY MAKING

Preparation of Dead to Defy the Ages

‘VTfJWiS that one of the most famous -of American scientists thinks he has discovered, after many years of research, the secret of embalming which was lost when the old Egyptian civilisation crumbled into the dust, must puzzle many people. [For it is mot common knowledge that, despite our enormously superior scientific attainments, we are still the inferiors of the Pharaohhs ’experts in this respect, says an English paper. Mummifying is, indeed, a lost art. Marvellous as is our range of knowledge in this scientific age, we can -no longer emlbalm the dead with the certainty that 5000 or 6000 years hence -their bodies will lie intact in the tomb, having withstood the disintegrating ' effect of time. :But the old -Egyptians, even at a time when they had not discovered -the use of the wheel—that simple yet magie thing around which subsequent civilisations .were to arise and develop —prepared their dead to defy the ages. Only the great nobles and high priests could afford to pay for the miraculous art of the best eanbalmers. Only the godkings were buried in such a way as to survive through untold years. TThe tombs of kings were built by slave labour during the king’s lifetime. When the monarch died the embalmers

were summoned and prepared the dead man with all the solemnity of a religious significance. The brains were also removed. ‘These organs were embalmed separately and enclosed in four jars, which had- lixls shaped like human heads, sometimes in the shape respectively of a man, a hawk,, a jackal, and an ape—genii of the aead. Enclosed in a black and gold ‘box the jars were deposited in the tomb with the mummy. The body having been thus treated, potent embalming fluids were poured in through funnels. For 70 days the body lay steeping in natron. Then it was scrupulously washed and bound with strips of the finest wax fabric, powerful gum being used to secure the multifold wrappings. The mummy was placed in a wooden coffin, which was encased in a second coffin. A third outer coffin, the lid marvellously shaped in the form of a human being, with painted hands and face, encased the two inner shells; and the sarcophagus enclosed all. The Bead .man’s soul was then free to - wander through the abodes of the dead for a period varying from 3000 to 10,000 years, after which it was believed to return to its tomb and seek once again its earthly body. If the body had d'eeayed, or had been disturbed, transmigration took place.