ANCIENT AND MODERN MUMMIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7544, 29 October 1902, Page 1

ANCIENT AND MODERN MUMMIES.

(American Paper.) The custom of preserving the bodies oi the dead dates from time immemorial. It is, literally speaking, as old as Methuselah — perhaps older. (But so accustomed has the twentieth century American ''become to the idea of a mummy as a much bandaged and shrunken bit oi 'human antiquity — or, should one say, antique humanity—decorating a marble slab in a museum, among other fine arts, that fee "was startled by the cabled message to the effect that the body .of the late iSignor Ordspi, for many years Prime -Minister of Italy, had been placed in its appointed niche in a crypt of the world-famed Capuchin monastery near Palermo, the process of its mummification 'being now complete. The old statesman iras all his life long such a foe to fche church and to the religious orders that such a disposition of 'his remains is, to say the least , curious ; but only on that account. For Signor Crispi will not be lonesome in 'his new abode. He will have the company of thousands upon thousands of Capuchin monks, and great . dignitaries of the church, as well as of not a few Sicilian nobles and statesmen who are preserved in a mummified, condition in the vaults of that beautiful mosque-like structure—indeed, it was' formerly a Mohammedan mosque in the days when the Moslem ruled that fairest .of island capitals. These Capuchin monks have a peculiar and secret process of embalming, said to have been .transmitted to them •by the former: Moslem owners of the property. For 'hundreds of years t/hey have made this disposition of the bodies of their dead, which are exhibited uncoffined for the inspection of the devout and the curious who visit this Christian 'Pantheon. The bodies are for the most part "wonderfully life-like in appearance, except that the process of mummification turns them almost entirely black. Many of them are suspended from nails and. hooks on the walls, wtile others repose in niches in the -walls or on marble tables. Gruesome as the idea is, the sight is not so. Indeed, there is .something wonderfully solemn and dignified about #his silent concourse with the dead, in monkish frocks and cowls, or priestly vestments. One is not surprised- to learn, after having seen them, that the Palermitans, who 'have a church dedicated to " the souls '"of the decapitated, dead" — who must be very numerous and powerful in that land of the vendetta— have also a, pretty Gothic chapel raised in memoriam of these' embalmed Capuchin monks, whose intercession is said to be very effective in the curing of the sick and the crippled. Pilgrimages, from all over Sicily are made to this chapel, and. the number of votive offerings) * candles, flowers,- fruit, -crutches, etc., is very large. .In fche "Capuchin chmch," so called, -which is (in another part -, of the city, there is a statue of the Madonna, which- performs many miracles also. ' CAREFOXLY-PKESERVED MTTMMIKS. . But this Sicilian Monastery is not the only instance in modern times of the preservation of the bodies of the dead. There are many spots in Europe and other parts of the world in which the custom prevails. There are many advantages' in its favour.* We ourselves should, be more likely to follow in the tracks of the Egyptians were it not. that, the climate, is against it. Amid, the burning sands of Libya,, or on the plains oi Central Ajnenca,.the traveller, who is left to die and to lie unburied by hi companions is mummified by: the hands of Nature herself. It is no.t unlikely, that the first embalmers may have taken a, hint from some such chance species of homo siccus and improved on the model until the m,asterpiece in the modern museum is the-re-sult. It was the, belief of the Egyptians, and possibly of the Central American, the cliff-dweller and mound-builder, -who likewise embalmed their dead — that after three thousand years the soul -would return to its deserted body. Quite naturally, therefore, he took great pains with his future habitation, and no. expense was spared to make his mummy as perfect and as beautiful as possible. The last toilet of these Royal personages, was certainly' elaborate. The wrinkles caused by the process of mummification were carefully filled in with enamel, the cheeks were .coloured with ochre and false eyes, introduced beneath the shrunken lids, giving the faces a horribly life-like appearance. Most of the queens were buried in all their jewels, like the famous Queen Aah-hotep, but others were not so fortunate as that celebrated beauty ; Arab vandals, and perhaps Christian vandals, too, did not hesitate to rifle these Royal dead, as the print of the jewels in the withered flesh and the carelessly restored bandages bear witness. STRAXGE TALES REVEALED. Many a story, curious, mysteriousj comic, pathetic or tragic, those spicy remains of a past and gone civilisation have to tell. Only a . short time ago, at the .time of King Edward's illness, Professor Lannelongue, the great French authority on appendicitis, made the fact known that the dread disease^ was probably just as fashionable in the days of the Pharaohs as now. As- evidence he set before his class 1 an Egyptian mummy of the eleventh dynasty, which demonstrated clearly that appendicitis was known and operated upon 5000 years ago — among! the contemporaries of Joseph and Moses. . Among the mummies recently unrolled in Berlin was that of an anonymous prince of Royal blood who appears to have been embalmed alive. The body was bound in three places with strong ligaments which made deep indentations in the skin, from which blood had spurted, and the heart and other vital organs remained intact, although it was customary to remove them. The agonised expression of the face and open mouth, the swollen and knotted muscles, bear silent witness of his desperate struggle and the horrors of his last agony. He was about twenty years of age and evidently of high rank. That he was the victim of some unspeakable tragedy no one can doubt. But of his name, parentage or fate there is no clue. ANCIENT METHODS OF EMBALMING. The ancient methods of embalming differed materially from those now in use. The Egyptians- first covered the body with a thick covering of bitumen, lime and pounded resin, and then rolled it in hundreds of yards of strong linen bandages, which had been soaked in some glutinous substance. There are many methods in use at the present time, but all widely different from this. In Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister" a process is given by which a dead body may be indefinitely preserved, retaining all the beauty it had in life, and offering the appearance of being merely locked in a gentle sleep. After the death of poor, pretty little -Mi gnon r her body, is subjected to this process, .and is then exhibited, cradled in flowers, to her sorrowing friends. ""A balsamic substance, says the abbe who conducts them, " has been forced through all her veins, and now tinges, m place of blood, those cheeks too early faded." He raised the veil ; the child was lying in her angel's dress as though asleep, in a soft and graceful posture. Many readers have considered this passage unreal and fanciful, if not impossible, but a number of bodies embalmed after this method by Dr Ga.mmel, in 1862, Tiave been found to retain a lifelike appearance that defies the power of decay. A single incision is all that is necessary for the purpose of injection, the embalming fluid is

> forced rapidly through the. veins, and the 1 body, becomes firm and elastic. The dry- > ing process occupies about six months, but after that the embalmed individual requires no further treatment. ICUMMIKED BOYALTT. • 'It is a fact not generally known that all the kings of Spain who have possessed the , actual sovereign power are subjected to the mummifying process: Since the- days, of the Emperor Charles V. such has been the custom,- and even as late as 1870 the coffins of the great emperor and his son,. King Philip 11-., were opened and photographs taken of the. mummies, which tourists purchase for a small coin. . The. royal tomb or, as the Spaniards call it the Pantheon, 'is a gorgeous vault, placed exactly beneath the high altar oi the church in the Escurial, in. the form of an octagon. One« descends into it by means of a staircase, whose walls are lined with green and yellow jasper. . The walls of the Pantheon' are of the purest of polished maible and porphyry, with gilt bronze capitals and angels, .the whole executed by the greatest artists of. Italy and Spain. The octagonal walls contain numerous niches, or shelves; on twenty-six of which are gray marble sarcophagi, or urns of classical shape. On, the left are the kings and on, the right the' mothers- '.of - kings, " from ' Charles, "y^, down' to our own fimes. In a 'short "time" there will be added to the . left side the sarcophagus of Alphonse XII. t father of the present youthful sovereign of the Peninsular. For nearly seventeen years the body of tke late king lay- on -a marble slab in a dark and mysterious vault, through whose grated door tourists were allowed to .peep. Over it the water from a certain Unique mineral spring has been constantly pouring, ' until • the human flesh has been literally petrified;