15 Shocking Facts About Ancient Mummies
Egyptian Mummies Are Dead Pharaohs (Kings) Whose Bodies Were
Preserved After Their Death So That They Become Gods Worshiped By The
People
It was
widely believed, in ancient Egypt, that once a king died, his body would need
to be preserved so that his soul could travel to the next world, thereby,
making the king one of the many gods to be worshiped by the people. To enable
this, the process of Mummification came into existence, through which the dead
bodies of the kings were preserved from decomposing and placed in special
tombs in the Egyptian pyramids that still stand today. On the other hand, the
poor Egyptians were buried in sand.
South Americans Were The First People Who Started Mummifying
Dead People 2,000 Years Before Egyptians Began With the Mummification Process
2,000
years before Egyptians started the process of “Mummification”,
the Chinchorro people, who lived on the coast of the Atacama Desert, in
modern-day Peru and Chile, were already mummifying their dead people. The
oldest Chinchorro mummies date back about 7,000 years. The dead bodies had
their organs removed, their skin was sewed back and their bodies were
painted black from head to toe. Then the Chinchorro people
would place wigs on the heads, and they left the eyes and mouths open.
No
conclusive theories have been proposed to explain why this process took place
but many believe that due to the dry climate of the Atacama
Desert, corpses did not decompose and hence, the people found a
workaround.
The Pyramids In Egypt Were Built To Protect The Dead
Bodies Of Kings That Have Been Mummified For Thousands Of Years
The
pyramids were built to protect the body of the deceased pharaoh (king). These
massive tombs were constructed to withstand the elements of time and were
intended to last forever. The king upon his death represented “Osiris”-setting
of the sun while the new pharaoh, his son, represented “Horus”- rising of the sun. That’s why
it was so imperative to preserve the bodies of the Dead kings in order to
continue the cycle of sun-setting and sun-rising. Once the process of
mummification was complete, the pharaoh was buried with his most prized
possessions such as jewelry, funerary statues, and items that would aid him in
his afterlife.
In
each pyramid a sarcophagus made of heavy stone protected the king’s mummy but
since they were robbed by the tomb robbers, the existing Kings decided
to carve their tombs among cliffs.
In Egypt, Cats Who Died Were Also Mummified With The
Kings Since They Were Thought To Be A Very Sacred Animal
In
Egypt, the dead Pharaohs (Kings) were not the only people who got Mummified.
Mummification of animals, particularly Cats, was also done along with the
Kings. Cats, in Egypt, have been thought of as a very sacred animal that is
often considered to be the harbinger of Good Luck. It was also commonly
advocated that Cats could kill vermin and even poisonous snakes, because of
which they were worshiped in ancient Egypt. Many Pharaohs were buried with
their mummified pet cats.
The Mummies Are Thought To Be Protected With Curses In Order
To Shield Them From Evil And To Prevent Them From Being Stolen
Legends about the “Curse of the Pharaoh’s” started
around the 7th Century when the Arabs arrived in Egypt. Fearing that the
Mummies might be stolen for the antiques that were buried with the Dead Bodies,
it has been widely believed that the Mummies were protected with a curse that
would be laid upon anyone who tried to smuggle them. However, no archaeologist
has been able to trace the origin of the curse, although many stories about
people getting affected by the curse have been floated since 1923, after an
archaeologist named “Howard Carter” upon discovering King Tutankhaumum’s tomb,
tried to peek into the structure along with his excavation sponsor- Lord
Carnarvon. Lord Carnarvon later died after blood poisoning and Howard Carter
died in 1939.
Artists between 16th-19th century used a type of Brown Paint
called “Mummy Brown” that was made from Ground Up Mummies
In the
16th and 17th century, Egyptian mummies were used to produce a type
of paint, which was called Mummy Brown, whose main ingredient was Ground up
Mummies. This powder was mixed with white pitch and myrrh to produce a
rich brown pigment. The paint was commonly used amongst the Pre-Raphaelite
painters of the mid-19th century-notably Sir William Beechey, a
British portraitist kept stocks of Mummy Brown as did the French artist
Martin Drölling. Besides painting, the Mummy Brown was also used in
Medicines-where it was known as Mummy Powder- since they
contained bitumen, which was used by the ancient Greeks to cure a variety
of diseases. The modern pigment sold as “Mummy Brown” is composed of a mixture
of kaolin, quartz, goethite and hematite, the hematite and goethite (generally
60% of the content) determining the color.
A 2,100-year-old Mummy Was Found in China Whose Skin
Was Moist, Joints Were Flexible And Blood Was Running In Veins
Besides Having All Organs Intact
In
1971, workers digging an air raid shelter near the city of Changsha uncovered
a Han Dynasty-era tomb that contained a tomb belonging to
Xin Zhui, the wife of the ruler of the Han imperial fiefdom of Dai. Xin
Zhui, the Lady of Dai, died between 178 and 145 BC, at around 50 years of age
and her 2,100 years old Mummy was uncovered during the excavation. Autopsy
revealed that she died from a heart-attack at 50 years of age due to
obesity. When her Mummy was recovered, she still had moist skin, her
joints were still flexible and every feature remained intact down to her
eyelashes and the hair in her nostrils, including blood that ran in
her veins. Lady Dai was found in an airtight tomb 12 metres underground,
locked inside four layers of coffins. A thick layer of white paste-like soil
was on the floor. Her body had been buried in 20 layers of silk and she
was found in 80 litres of an unknown liquid.
3,000-year-old “Frankenstein” Mummies Were Found In
Scotland Consisting Of 2 Bodies Made From 6 People
Archaeologists
in 2001, found a pair of 3,000-year-old skeletons at Cladh Hallan of
one male and one female, in fetal position. What was startling in this
discovery was that the male skeleton was actually a composite wherein
its torso, skull and neck, and lower jaw belonged to three separate men. As for
the female skeleton, it was also a composite formed from a male skull, a
female torso, and the arm of a third person, whose gender has yet to be
determined. Carbon dating indicated that the skull of the female mummy
was probably 50 to 200 years older than the torso. Scientists also
determined that the bodies had been placed in a peat bog just long enough to
preserve them and then removed. The skeletons were then reburied hundreds of
years later.
During Roman era, Egyptian Mummies Were Sometimes
Accompanied By Their Portraits With Lifelike Quality On Wooden Boards.
Nearly 1000 Of These Portraits Exist Today
Scores
of exquisite portraits executed on wood panels by anonymous artists were
uncovered by British archaeologist W.M. Flinders between 1887 and 1889,
in Fayum, a massive oasis region 150 miles south of Alexandria.
Called Fayum Mummy Portraits, these portraits were associated with the
Mummified bodies, and their lifelike qualities, intensity and details have startled
researchers and scientists alike. Scientists at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
museum in Copenhagen, analyzed one such portrait and found extensive use of
Egyptian blue, a copper-containing synthetic pigment, around the eyes,
nose and mouth, perhaps to create shading, and mixed with red elsewhere on the
skin, perhaps to enhance the illusion of flesh. A total of 1,000 Fayum
paintings exist in collections in Egypt and at the Louvre, the British and
Petrie museums in London.
A Research Conducted on 137 Mummies Acorss 4,000 Years
Found Hardening of Arteries Which Has Dispelled The Myth That Heart Disease Is
a Product Of Modern Society
Caleb Finch, a neurobiologist at the University of
Southern California, performed CT scans to analyze the arteries of 137 mummies
that spanned 4,000 years. The mummies belonged to the Peruvian, ancestral
Pueblo Indian, indigenous Aleutian islander, and ancient Egyptian
populations. The scans revealed that calcium deposits had narrowed the
arteries resulting in a heart disease known as “Atherosclerosis”. The clogged
arteries were also observed in Mummies which had a background of consuming only
grain-based diet and mainly meat and fish, thereby enabling some Researchers to
believe that Heart diseases are an ineradicable part of Human aging.
During Victorian era, Mummies Could be Purchased From
Vendors for “Mummy Unwrapping Parties” Where Mummies Were Unwrapped In Front Of
The Audience For Fun
During
the Victorian era of 1800’s, Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt threw open the Gates
of Egypt’s history for the Europeans. At that time, Mummies were not accorded
the respect that they deserved from the Victorian elites and in fact, Mummies
could be purchased from street vendors (as shown in picture) to be used as
the main event for parties and social gatherings that took place in the 18th
century. The elites of the Victorian era would often hold “Mummy Unwrapping
Parties”, which, as the name suggests, had the main theme in which a Mummy
would be unwrapped in front of a boisterous audience, cheering and applauding
at the same time. Many Scientists claimed that, then, the information about how
unwrapping would have damaged the Mummy was not known to many.
In 16th and 17th century, Mummies- Often Called as “Mummia”-
Were Eaten By The Europeans As Medicines.
In
16th and 17th century, Many Europeans, including priests, royalty and
scientists, consumed human bones, blood and fat as medicine for everything
from headaches to epilepsy. Mummy, often sold as “mummia” (because Mummies were embalmed with bitumin) was
applied to the skin or powdered and mixed into drinks as a treatment for
bruising and other ailments. Skull was one common ingredient, taken in powdered
form to cure head ailments. Blood was procured as fresh as possible while it
was widely believed that rubbing fat on an ache will ease
the pain and applying powdered moss up the nose will
heal the nosebleed. According to historian Richard Sugg- “the belief may
have come from ancients such as Pliny the Elder, who wrote that the bitumen
used to embalm mummies offered healing powers”.
Traces Of Nicotine And Cocaine Were Found In Egyptian
Mummies That Have Led To The Speculation That Ancient Egyptians Traveled To The
New World (America) in 1,000 B.C.
German
scientist Dr Svetla Balabanova, in 1992, while studying mummified remains
of Lady Henut Taui, who died 3,000 years ago, was shocked to discover that
the mummy contained traces of nicotine and cocaine. The findings were
cross-examined, tested over and again with other specimens but the results
remained the same. This led to many Scientists and Archaeologists speculate
that ancient Egyptians must have traveled to America as early as 1,000 B.C.
since Nicotine and Cocaine had not yet been transported to Egypt until the
Victorian era. To this day, the extent of ancient Egyptian contact with
the Americas remains uncertain.
Ancient Nubian mummies Were Found To Have The Modern
Antibiotic Tetracycline In Their Bones. They Got It From Beer
Chemical
Analysis of the bones of African Mummies revealed large doses of
tetracycline embedded in the bones. Further analysis revealed that Nubians had
been consuming tetracycline on a regular basis. The source was tracked
to “Grain”, which upon fermentation would explode
with tetracycline. Nubians both ate the fermented grains as gruel and
used it to make beer. The analysis were conducted by George
Armelagos, a biological anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, who
had excavated the mummies in 1963 for the sole purpose
of examining osteoporosis in the Nubians, who lived between about 350
and 550 A.D. But while looking through a microscope at samples of the ancient
bone under ultraviolet light, he saw what looked like tetracycline and
conducted further tests.
The mummy of Ramesses II (aka Ozymandias) Was Flown To Paris
in 1974, And Was Issued a Passport That Listed His Occupation As “King
(deceased)”
Regarded by many historians as Egypt’s most powerful
pharaoh, Ramesses II reigned for six decades (c. 1279-1213 B.C.), and was
originally buried in the tomb KV7 in the Valley of the Kings, but due to the
incessant looting, his tomb kept getting transferred to a holding area while
getting re-wrapped over and again. In 1974, archeologists noticed its deteriorating
condition and flew it to Paris. Before the journey, Ramesses II was issued
an Egyptian passport, which listed his occupation as “King (deceased). During
the examination, it was found that fungus had been attacking Ramesses’s
mummy and it was subsequently killed. Apart from the fungus examination,
analysis revealed that the king had battle wounds, old fractures,
arthritis and poor circulation and it was suspected that he might have walked
with a hunched back in his old days due to the onset of arthritis. In 1881,
Ramesses II’s mummy was discovered in a secret royal cache at Deir el-Bahri,
along with those of more than 50 other rulers and nobles.
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