Mummification in Ancient Egypt: Purpose and Process

Introduction to Egyptian Mummification

The practice of mummification in Ancient Egypt is probably one of the most famous elements of this ancient culture. Mummification is a technique for preserving the human body after a person has died.

There are many ways to preserve a body after death. In the twentieth century, various forms of embalming emerged—such as Lenin in Russia or Evita Perón in Argentina—and also freezing, such as legendary American baseball player Ted Williams. However, the Egyptian form of mummification is much older and considerably simpler than these twentieth-century technological solutions.

Egyptian mummification was practiced by the priests of Ancient Egypt and was, in the earliest times, reserved only for the Pharaoh or for members of the Pharaoh's inner circle, including pets and symbolic animals. Later, when the Pharaohs of Egypt had become a colony of Greek and Roman empires, mummification was more widely available as a service that could be paid for.

Religious Significance and the Afterlife

In the earliest days, Egyptian mummification was a religious ritual. We can see this most specifically in the famous Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is a set of prayers and rituals that explained what Egyptians believed would happen to the soul in the afterlife. This included a scene of judgment in which the gods weighed the heart of the dead person on a scale. If the heart weighed more than a feather, then the dead person was sent for punishment. This is not very different from ideas of judgment in the afterlife that are found in many religions today.

In his translation of the Book of the Dead, the famous Egyptologist Sir Ernest Wallis Budge points out that Egyptian mummification is directly related to Egyptian belief in the afterlife. He argues that "the preservation of the corruptible body was in some way connected with the life in the world to come, and its preservation was necessary to ensure eternal life; otherwise...the time-honored custom of mummifying the dead would have had no meaning" (Budge lviii). This observation demonstrates that mummification was not merely a practical concern but a fundamental expression of religious conviction.

The Mummification Process

The act of mummification is fairly simple. Egyptian priests would take the dead body and wash it thoroughly in the Nile River. Once they had cleaned the body, the priests would remove the brains through the nose. They would make one cut on the side of the body to remove the internal organs such as the heart, which were preserved in separate jars called "canopic jars".

Finally, the body would be packed full of a salt-like substance called "natron." Natron is a naturally occurring substance which contains a large percentage of what we call "baking soda" (or sodium bicarbonate) and a smaller percentage of what we call "table salt" (or sodium chloride).

Chemical Preservation and Modern Analogy

Both sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride are excellent at absorbing water—that is why sodium chloride is still used today to melt ice and snow. However, the baking soda in the natron also "cleanses by chemically destroying fat and grease" (Lucas and Harris 281). Since the organs have already been removed, what is left over is an entirely dry husk, which does not decay in the way that a body ordinarily would.

The basic process of mummification is easily demonstrated if we use an ordinary hot dog in the place of a body. Obviously a hot dog is composed of the same substances—meat and fat—that are found in a body after the organs are removed. A hot dog does not have a skeleton, of course, but the bones are largely unaffected by the mummification process. A hot dog placed in pure baking soda will, after two to four weeks, have all of its water, fat, and grease absorbed and broken down by the baking soda. What is left is a mummified hot dog, a tangible demonstration of the chemical principles the ancient Egyptians employed.

Conclusion

This practical analogy reveals that the ancient Egyptian technique of mummification, rooted in spiritual belief about the afterlife, operated according to sound chemical principles that continue to be understood and applied today.

Budge, E.A. Wallis. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. New York: Dover Publications, 1967. Print.

Lucas, A. and Harris, J.R. Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries. New York: Dover Publications, 1999. Print.