542 Transactions of the Society. 



rarely. In some cases, it is stated, the body was immersed in melted 

 bitumen. A species of tanning was also employed. Sometimes the 

 viscera, after cleansing, were replaced, but more frequently embalmed 

 separately, and placed in a vase near the mummy, the emptied abdomen 

 being filled with chips of cedar sawdust, and a little natron. The cast 

 linen of the household was usually kept for the bandages. The swathing 

 was begun at the toes and fingers, then carried over the whole body in 

 numberless bands ; from 700 to 1200 yards of bandages, or strips three 

 or four inches wide, it is written, have been unrolled from a single 

 mummy. The mummies of Memphis are described as black and brittle, 

 and those of the time of the Hebrews as yellow and flexible, the flesh 

 even yielding to pressure, and the limbs capable of altered position with- 

 out breaking. This flexibility is supposed to have resulted from the use 

 of very costly injections of chemical solutions into the vessels, as the 

 natron process largely destroyed the structures. The under bandages 

 were dipped in spirit and applied wet. When Syrian turpentine came 

 into use as in Thebes, the mummies were blacker than those of Memphis, 

 both the bandages and body being greatly hardened. In later periods 

 some of the bodies had an ashen grey appearance, others that were treated 

 with bitumen were dark coloured and heavy. The methods described by 

 Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and others, have been more or less con- 

 firmed by MM. Jomard, Koyer, and Larrey, in their * Description de 

 I'Egypte.' The evisceration by incision is said to have been adopted for 

 the rich. The mummies in which the cavities were filled with aromatic 

 resinous bodies are somewhat olive coloured, with distinct features, the 

 teeth, hair, and eyebrows remaining mostly perfect. Those in which the 

 body had been filled with bitumen, are somewhat reddish, with a hard 

 skin, and are not very alterable on exposure to the atmosphere, the features 

 remaining moderately perfect. Those that have been salted do not differ 

 much from the last, but the hair has generally dropped off, and the 

 features are not so perfect. When the impure bitumen or pisasphalt was 

 use 1 internally, it was also supposed to have been used very hot, so as to 

 impregnate all the tissues. The bodies that were only salted and dried 

 remain less perfect, the features being destroyed, the hair removed, while 

 the skin is hard and parchmenty. The Egyptian modes of embalming 

 were copied by the Jews, Greeks, and Eomans.* 



The more perfect Jewish method was probably the one employed in 

 preserving the mummy that furnished the muscle that has been the 

 subject of this paper, though this must be accepted as a matter of specu- 

 lation. 



The appearances under the Microscope of living and recently dead 

 muscle are not strictly alike, the latter has more opacity besides other 

 difierences. The muscle fluid, myosin, has been found to coagulate at 

 45° C, and the same temperature sets up rigor mortis, and at 75° C. the 

 albuminoids become coagulated. In spite of the diligent physiological 

 and microscopical researches that have been made in studying the 

 complex character of living muscle, we are yet confronted by many 



* For the rules and methods of embalming 1 am indebted to the pages of the 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9tii ed., the Penny Cyclopaadia, and Kitto's Cyclopedia of 

 Biblical Literature. 



