825 



MUMMY. 



MUMMY. 



S26 



bitumen ; 4. Preparing with fine resins, and removing the brains and 

 viscera. A division, purely arbitrary, has been made between mum- 

 mies having the flank incision, and those without. Of the 1st class 

 they make: 1. Those prepared with an aromatic resin, having the 

 skin like tanned leather, sometimes partially gilded ; 2. Those prepared 

 with bitumen, the skin hard and shining like Japan varnish, the body 

 filled with bitumen, the mummy difficult to unroL Of this class some 

 are salted and then daubed with resinous substances, others with pitch, 

 having the skin hard and smooth. The mummies without the flank 

 incision are either salted and prepared with impure masses of bitumen, 

 or salted only ; the first kind have their form utterly destroyed, being 

 covered with a mass of pissasphalt which has penetrated through the 

 skin, muscles, and bone, owing to their having been boiled or suffused 

 with bitumen. They are hard, and give forth a pleasant smell, and 

 they chiefly come from Sakkara, and date from the 7th to the 2nd 

 century, B.C. The salted mummies are usually in bad condition, the 

 skin like parchment, and easily broken. Some anomalous examples 

 have been found prepared with wax, and in those prepared by pissa- 

 sphalt the skin has been sometimes removed. (Magnus, ' das Einbals. 

 d. Leichen,' p. 26-27.) 



Great difference of opinion exists about the substances employed, 

 natron or lilnn is supposed to be Glauber's salts, common salt, salt- 

 petre, or soda (Dioscorides and Galen), kedrion, or oil of cedar, turpen- 

 tine, or pyrohgneous acid (Pliny, ' N. H.' xvi, c. 21 ; Lb'sch, ' die eegypt. 

 Mnm.'12mo. Nurenb. 1827.) Asphalt came from the Lacus Asphaltites 

 of Idumtea (Diodor., xix. 99 ; Strabo, xvi. 526), the pissasphalt was a 

 mixture of the same substance with pitch. Myrrh and cinnamon (the 

 bark of the Laurus cassia, (Herod., ii. 87 ; Magnus, p. 33.) The tyrauea 

 was an alkaline preparation. All these materials have been found in 

 different mummies, either within or without the bodies, and some 

 mummies have been found strewn with the drier materials, such as 

 myrrh, cinnamon, and cassia, which retained their fragrance. (Osburn, 

 ' Leeds mummy,' p. 6.) 



Considerable difference prevails as to the treatment of the various 

 portions of the body : the brain was generally removed through the 

 nose, or orbits of the eyes, or base of the cranium. The cavity of the 

 skull when removed is found sometimes hollow, at others filled with 

 pissasphalt, or earthy matter. The nostrils are generally plugged with 

 linen pads to exclude the entrance of the air, or of destructive 

 insects, which nevertheless have sometimes penetrated the skull and 

 body. The eyes have sometimes been removed and the cavities filled 

 with artificial ones of ivory and obsidian or coloured porcelain. 

 The hair of men has generally been left in its natural condition, but 

 that of females has often been cut off, wrapped up in separate linen 

 bandages, and deposited either in the coffin, or placed on the body. 

 Sometimes these masses of hair are made up in an oval shape and 

 covered with bitumen, at others merely folded in linen. The flank 

 incision varies in position and length, being placed in some mummies 

 beneath the ribs, but in others under the arm-pits. This incision in 

 mummies of the 26th dynasty, and under the Ptolemies and Romans, 

 has a square rectangular thin plate of tin, on which is incised in out- 

 line the right symbolical eye, emblem of the sun, in accordance with the 

 140th chapter of the Ritual. (Lepsius, ' Todt.,' taf. Ivii. c. 140.) The 

 entrails, which have been removed through this incision, have been 

 treated in different manners, according to the care with which the 

 embalmment has been performed, or the epoch at which the body has 

 been mummied. At aU epochs the most costly funerals had four large 

 jars of zoned, alabaster, calcareous stone, terra cotta, porcelain, or wooc 

 modelled in shape of the four genii of the dead, Amset, Hapi, Tuaut- 

 mutf, and Kabhsenuf ; mummied, and having the heads of a man, ape 

 jackal, and hawk. The thoracic and abdominal viscera were dividec 

 into four portions, embalmed in accordance with the process employee 

 for the body, either by immersion in natron, or boiled in asphalt 

 made up into oval or cylindrical packets which are enwrapped in linen 

 and one portion deposited in each jar. On the day of the funeral these 

 jars were placed in a large box and transported on a sledge to tin 

 sepulchre, and finally arranged at the side of the coffin or under th< 

 sepulchral bier. The most elegant and costly jars have formula) 

 reciting that the four principal goddesses, Neith, Selk, Isis, and 

 Nephthys, watch over and protect these embalmed portions. In 

 mummies of a later period, where so much cost was not expended, thi 

 embalmers made the viscera into four oval packets, and either place( 

 them on the body, or returned them through the flank incision intc 

 the body, in which case they are usually accompanied by figures o 

 red, yellow, or dark wax, or earth coated with that substance, repre 

 senting the four genii. On a mummy opened at Jersey (Pettigrew 

 ' Archscologia," vol. xxvii. pp. 262, 273), the portions attached to Amie 

 were the stomach and large intestines, Hapi presided over the smal 

 intestines, Tuautmutf the lungs and heart, Jfabhsenuf the liver am 

 gall bladder. Mummies of the 26th dynasty have sometimes th 

 fingers enclosed in stalls of silver, in order to prevent injury to tin 

 nails when the epidermis was destroyed, and the body subjected t< 

 the boiling bitumen into which the body was immersed (Birch 

 ' Archtcol. Journ.,' viii. 278); and in the days of the Ptolemies anc 

 K'inians, the tips of the nose, the nails, and extremities, and evei 

 jxirtions of tlie flesh were gilded, supposed by some to be those part 

 where decay had commenced, or lesion appeared. (Gryphius, ' Mum 

 Wratisl.' 12mo. 1662 ; Pabrichu, ' Biblogr. Antiq.' c. xxiii. i, c. 7.) On 



articular custom, [not Egyptian but Greek, is found on mummies of the 

 'tolemaic and Roman period the jaws are carefully closed and bound 

 p, while in those of the Pharaonic age the mouth is always open. (Cail- 

 aud, ' Voyage a Meroe,' iv. p. 13, and foil.) The mummy of Petein- 

 nophis-Ammonios, found by Cailliaud at Gournah, was discovered to 

 lave the eyelids closed by a plate of gold in shape of an eye with its 

 id, and a plate of gold in shape of the tongue over that member, while 

 a. crown of gilded copper encircled the head. (Cailliaud, pi. Ixxi.) On 

 he Wratislaw mummy, a plate of gold of 10 grs. weight was found 

 under the tongue. (Gryphius, p. 46.) The limbs are differently dis- 

 xised, the legs, however, always straight and extended; the hands 

 if women are sometimes crossed upon the breast, and of girls on the 

 jroin ; those of men and women are often placed flat down the sides, 

 with the palms inwards and fingers extended. (Cailliaud, ' Voy. & 

 4er.' iv. 13; Passalacqua, ' Cat.' p. 180.) Various small portions of 

 the body, such perhaps as had become diseased, were embalmed sepa- 

 rately in the same manner as the viscera, and placed in recesses hoi- 

 owed in the pedestals of wooden figures, in shape of Osiris, or Ptah 

 Socharis. (Rosellini, ' Mon. Civ.,' torn. iii. p. 349). The hieroglyphical 

 iitual gives directions for various amulets to be placed about the body, 

 the most remarkable of which are a searabseus of hard stone inscribed 

 on the base with the 26 or 64 ch. found on rich mummies on the 

 jreast ; or when plain, sometimes discovered inside the body : this 

 was to protect the heart. Another in shape of the index and middle 

 inger is often found in the belly. (Pettigrew, ''Hist. Eg. Mum.,' pi. iv. 5, 

 ->. 96 ; Herzog., PI., fig. 34.) The other amulets, chiefly disposed on 

 ;he neck, are a pillow of hematite, emblems of life, of stability, symbolic 

 eyes, and figures of deities strung as a necklace round the neck. Nine- 

 teen were found on the Jersey mummy, and seventy-four on that of 

 Gotha. Plates of tin incised with the winged disk, or the flying hawk, 

 and other symbols, have been found on the chest. Besides these 

 amulets, the jewellery worn during life, the ear-rings, bracelets, finger- 

 rings, collars, and other valuables,'have constantly been found. (Herzog, 

 ' Mumiogr." p. 16.) 



The bandages of mummies are invariably of linen, the use of wool 

 being prohibited. (Herod., ii. 37.) The only woollen bandages dis- 

 covered were those of the supposed body of Menkheres, and of the 

 workmen of the Tourah quarries, rendering the age of these bodies 

 uncertain. Neither cotton nor silk, as conjectured by some of the 

 older writers, was ever used. (Thompson, ' Mummy Cloth,' Class. 

 Mums. vol. vi. p. 152.) The greater part. of these bandages were made 

 of old linen, either collected by the deceased during his life-time or 

 else by the tarickeittee. Shirts and darned portions of garments are 

 frequently found, and even the initials of the deceased embroidered on 

 the cloth. This cloth is of various qualities, from the coarseness of 

 canvas to the fine texture of muslin. The mass of bandages are, 

 however, strips of about three or four inches wide, and from one to 

 several yards wide, wound round the form with great skill and sym- 

 metry, and apparently laid on in a wet state. All the inequalities are 

 carefully padded with small pledgets to bring the body to a symmetrical 

 shape. At the Roman period, the limbs are bandaged separately, 

 showing their form, in narrow strips of linen. The bandages near 

 the form were often laid on while the asphalt was still hot and liquid, 

 and others were dipped in liquid aromatics before applied ; but the 

 greater part are of linen once white, but which has become of a 

 cinnamon or yellow colour through age, although capable of resuming 

 their original colour when bleached. Some pieces of linen have 

 selvages, fringes, and blue lines, produced in the woof by threads dyed 

 with indigo, as if torn from the original piece, and large shrouds which 

 cover the other bandages close to the surface have been dyed of a red 

 colour by means of the Carthamus tinctorius. The length of these 

 bandages is considerable, as much as 1000 ells having been found 

 wrapping a single mummy. Wrappers bandaging mummies are repre- 

 sented in Rosellini (' Mon. Civ.' cxxvi.). The mummy when thus pre- 

 pared exhibited only the general outline of the human form, and lay 

 like a great chrysalis in its cocoon. The name of the deceased, the 

 years that he lived, and the reign of the monarch in whose reign he 

 died, are sometimes found inscribed in a caustic ink, said to be nitrate 

 of silver, on the inner bandages of some mummies. These marks 

 are supposed to have beenj made in the shops of the wrappers, to 

 prevent mistakes in the re-delivery of the bodies to the families. The 

 bandages are generally of coarsest linen near the body, and of finer 

 quality outside. 



On some mummies, prepared with the greatest care, straps of a 

 scarlet leather, about one and a half inch wide, have been found cross- 

 ing the shoulders, the ends crossing on the breast, on the ends of which 

 are stamped, apparently by a heated metal-punch like that used by the 

 bookbinders, the names and titles of the reigning king, or the monarch 

 adoring Amen-Ra. The earliest of these bears the name of Rameses 

 XIII., of the 20th dynasty (Osburn, ' Mummy at Leeds,' pi. 2), and 

 they continued to be used till the age of the Psammetici, B.C. 525. 

 At the Roman period leaden and wax seals were sometimes attached 

 to cords passed through the bandages of mummies, but the reason of 

 the custom is unknown. (Pettigrew, ' Hist. Eg. Mum.,' pi. xi. 3.) The 

 interior bandages of mummies have frequently a case composed of as 

 many as twenty or forty layers of linen closoly pressed and glued 

 together, and then covered with a thin layer of lime, on which have 

 been painted in tempera the face and dress of the mummy, various 



