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METHODS OF EMBALMING. 
I do not intend to give here a full account of the various methods of embalming 
in successive dynasties, as a volume would be required for that purpose. It is extraordi- 
nary that, as far as I know, no such work exists and a full account has not been written 
of the methods of embalming the bodies discovered in the many tombs opened lately. 
Indeed, most of the writers on this subject are content to copy the accounts given by 
Herodotus and by Diodorus Siculus. 
Herodotus' ^ description is as follows : 
« There are certain individuals appointed for the purpose (embalming), and who Herodotus. 
profess that art ; these persons after any body is brought to them, show the bearers 
some good models of corpses, painted to represent the originals ; the most perfect they 
assert to be the representation of him whose name I take it to be impious to mention 
in this matter; they then show a second which is inferior to the first, and cheaper; and 
a third, which is the cheapest of all. They then ask of them according to which of the 
models they will have the deceased prepared : having settled upon the price, the relations 
immediately depart, and the embalmers, remaining home, thus proceed to perform the 
embalming in the most costly manner. In the first place, with a crooked piece of iron, 
they pull out the brain by the nostrils ; a part of, it they extract in this manner the rest 
by means of pouring in certain drugs: in the next place, after making an incision in the 
flank with a sharp Egyptian stone, they empty the whole of the inside ; and after clean- 
sing the cavity, and rinsing it with palm wine, scour it out again with pounded aromatics ; 
then having filled the belly with pure myrrh pounded, and cinnamon, and all other 
perfumes, frankincence excepted, they sew it up again ; having so done, they steep the 
body in natrum 2, keeping it covered for 70 days, for it is not lawful to leave the body 
any longer in the brine. When the 70 days are gone by, they first wash the corpse, and 
then wrap up the whole of the body in bandages cut out of cotton cloth, which they 
smear with gum, a substance the Egyptians generally use instead of paste. 
The relations, having then received back the body get a wooden case, in the shape 
of a man, to be made ; and, when completed, place the body in the inside ; and then, 
shutting it up, keep it in a sepulchral repository, where they stick it upright against the 
wall. The above is the most costly manner in which they prepare the dead. For such 
as choose the middle mode, from a desire of avoiding expense, they prepare the body 
thus : they first fill syringes with cedar oil, which they inject into the belly of the de- 
ceased, without making any incision, or emptying the inside, but sending it up by the 
seat ; they then close the aperture, to hinder the injection from flowing backwards, and 
' This is copied from Pettigrew. 
2 Pelligrew wrote natrum. 
