2.Mummification

During the Dynastic period, or what is colloquially referred to as Ancient Egypt, the primary funerary practice was to mummify the dead. In particular, great care and ceremony went into the preserving of the bodies of the kings or pharaohs.This was largely due to the importance placed on their rebirth and deification. The importance placed on the preservation of all bodies, both royal and not, stems from some of their beliefs about the afterlife and focus on immortality. Essentially Egyptian world-view saw man as a complex combination of body and spirit and survival in the afterlife required the continued existence of a body. (Okon, 110) The soul was understood to have 3 different entities; the Ka, the Ba, and the Akh. (Hamilton-Paterson, 17-18) The Ka was a spiritual form and when it departed, the body died. However through the mummification and funerary rites a person who died could be recreated and the ka could return to the body and persist as a sort of spirit, or ba. (Okon, 114)

            The Egyptians took great care in ensuring preservation of the body, Mummification in Egypt spanned for a period of about 2,700 years, reaching its peak from about 1085-945 BC. (Hamilton-Paterson, 36) The actual embalming process did differ a little between periods but generally speaking it proceeded as follows: remove the insides, dry the body, re-pack it with studding to restore its original shape and wrap it up from head to foot. (Hamilton-Paterson, 39) The goal was to preserve the body by removing organs that cause decay, such as the intestines, liver, lungs and stomach and by injecting the body with drying or microbial substances such as salts, resins, cedar oil, palm wine, myrrh, cassia, gum, honey and bitumen. (Wisseman, 783)

A general procession of notable advances in the embalming process can be seen below:

(Wisseman, Figure 2) *Cartonnage' refers to the layers of papyrus, gum, fabric and plaster used to make masks and other fittings for mummies.

            But mummification is not just an Egyptian funerary practice. The Chinchorros were a group of people based on the Atacama coast, largely in northern Chile and southern Peru from about 7020-1110 BC. (Arriaza, 36) Their cemeteries contain several different types of mummies including Black, Red, Bandage, Mud coated and Natural however the black, red, and bandaged mummies were the most complex (ibid.) Unlike with the Egyptians, we can’t know if the mummification of these bodies has anything to do with believes about the afterlife. Some possible factors and explanations for the mummification include a belief in an afterlife, high infant and adult mortality rates, natural disasters, tragedies and ecological changes. (Arriaza, 43) The Chinchorros had several mummification processes to preserve the body both internally and externally. The black mummies are the most complex and essentially turned into statues by stuffing the body with unbaked clay, sticks and ropes and was then shaped to be close to the individuals form, including facial details and hair. (Arriaza, 43-45) The red mummies were bandaged, stuffed with different material and had more attention paid to their faces. (Arriaza 45-46)

A Chinchorro Mummy

            While the Egyptians essentially have one process or type of mummy the Chinchorros have multiple, perhaps symbolizing different things. Unlike for the Egyptians, we don’t have a large amounts of data in the form of grave goods or writings for the Chinchorros, so we can’t contextualize them the way we can Egyptian mummies. One thing for certain in both cases is that this preservation of bodies were relatively complex, intentional, and taking place for a fairly long period of time.

Later on in this blog we will continue to explore how the mummification processes surrounding King Tut support the idea that he was treated not just as a god incarnate, but as Osiris himself.

Sources

James Hamilton–Paterson, Carol Andrews. (1978). Mummies: Death and Life in Ancient Egypt.  William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.

Okon, E., & Etim E Okon. (2012). Archaeological Reflections on Ancient Egyptian religion and society. European Scientific Journal, 8(26) http://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/572/641

Wisseman, Sarah. (2001). Preserved for the Afterlife. Nature. 413(6858) pp. 783 – 784. http://www.nature.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/nature/journal/v413/n6858/full/413783a0.html

Arriaza, Bernardo T.. (1995). Chinchorro Bioarchaeology: Chronology and Mummy Seriation. Latin American Antiquity. 6(1) pp. 35-55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/971599

Unknown Author "Chinchorro Mummy" Photograph. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBWU-1-LbROIDDkrjANUPhyeMjaKnNUVemrE7bmk2Rm0fEsnM-c-60b7UFgm_337HNL8HDkCSmocO0ePNatu5cqhLFP4FFooYKSPH3isAtiSgsbKFUxudZQ5yTfxr8-UwzOo3fTISJm_4/s320/03momia.jpg