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New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 6, 5 August 1908, Page 38

Dr. J. C. Reisner has been carrying on exhaustive excavations for some six years in the neighbourhood of Naga-ed-Der, in Egypt. The site of the work is supposed to be that of the first settlement of man in e.gypt. some 9,000 years ago. A number of prehistoric mummies have been disinterred, preserved in salt, and wrapped in matting of halfa grass. These are specially interesting as indicating the first stages in the art of embalming, which afterwards attained such perfection in Egypt. They seem also to indicate that these primitive people held the belief that the body would be wanted again. A careful examination of these very well preserved skeletons reveals the important fact that the type has not changed in the long interval of 9.000 years. The contents of the intestines are also preserved, showing the food they ate and the medicine they took when they were sicK. The diseases of which they died could also sometimes be diagnosed. Some bad perished of kidney disease, others o, gall-stones or diseased bones.