Online Activities: Ancient Egypt

Artificial Mummies
Third Intermediate Period c. 1070 BCE - 713 BCE

It was the priests and bureaucrats of the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Dynasties who collected the ravaged New Kingdom mummies from their tombs in the Valley of the Kings and reburied them safely, but without glamour, in old tombs. During their clearance of the Royal Tombs, they had the opportunity to observe hundreds of mummies. As robbers had often torn the bandages in search of jewellery, the bodies had been laid bare.

For perhaps the first time in Egyptian history, embalmers could examine the results of their predecessors' work. They clearly thought that even the best of previous attempts had not been completely successful. Embalmers of this period tried to improve upon the New Kingdom model. They sometimes introduced packing of sawdust, natron, or other materials under the skin. They added false eyes of faience or stone.

Bodies were even painted, red-brown for men, yellow for women, and 'make-up' applied to faces, to enhance their life-like appearance. Wigs of twisted yarn were sometimes placed on the body or woven into the mummy's natural hair.

Unfortunately, these attempts to recreate a life-like appearance were not always successful. The packing materials could swell up, giving the body a very plump or even pregnant appearance, or burst through the skin, leaving a cracked, very unattractive face.

Perhaps in an attempt to make the body more complete, or perhaps because they had seen that canopic jars were often smashed by robbers, the embalmers now often wrapped the internal organs and then returned them to the body cavity. The canopic packages might also be placed inside the coffin, between the legs of the mummy.

 

 

Predynastic burial

Egyptian Desert