Updated on 02/01/2023 at 5:24 pm
- How did the ancient Egyptians mummify their dead?
- This is how scientists have already managed to answer this question.
- However, they have now managed to gain a deep insight into the “chemistry lab” of the time.
For the first time, researchers have demonstrated exactly how and with what substances ancient Egyptians embalmed their mummies. The German-Egyptian team managed to show which substances are behind well-known names and which were used for each part of the body.
“These discoveries make it possible to re-read well-known texts on ancient Egyptian embalming,” Philipp Stockhammer from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich (LMU) told the German Press Agency (dpa). Furthermore, much of the resources were imported from distant regions – proof of the beginnings of global networking.
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The results, which the team from LMU and the University of Tübingen achieved in cooperation with the National Research Center in Cairo, were published in the journal “Nature”. The researchers examined pots from a large embalming workshop.
Ceramic pots are labeled with contents and instructions
In Egyptian Saqqara, not far from the famous Pyramid of Unas, numerous well-preserved pottery vessels were found in the workshop from the 7th and 6th centuries BC – many of them even labeled with information about the contents and instructions for use.
Ships from the embalming workshop at Saqqara.
© dpa / M. Abdelghaffar/Saqqara Saite Tombs Project, University of Tübingen/dpa
With the help of chemical residue analysis, specialists were able to extract and identify the molecular residues of these substances that were previously in the vessel.
This often comes as a surprise to researchers: “For a long time, the substance called by the ancient Egyptians ‘antiu’ was translated as myrrh or frankincense. But now we have been able to show that it is a specific mixture of very different ingredients that we can use with the help of of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry,” reported project manager Maxime Rageot from the University of Tübingen.
Pistachio resin and castor oil exclusively for the head
In Saqqara, “antiu” was a mixture of cedar, juniper or cypress oil and animal fats. And behind “sefet” is not a single substance, as was previously assumed, but a mixture of animal fat with different vegetable oils or resins.
Pistachio resin and castor oil were used in the workshop exclusively for the head, other substances were used “on the third day” or “for the liver”, and others were “for beautiful skin”.
“Many of these embalming substances have been known by name since ancient Egyptian writing was deciphered,” reported excavation chief Susanne Beck from the University of Tübingen. “But until now we could only guess what substance was behind a name.”
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Mummifications fueled early global trade
“It was particularly surprising to us that most of the substances used during embalming did not come from Egypt itself, but were imported from the Mediterranean region and even from tropical Africa and Southeast Asia,” said Stockhammer. This dimension was previously unknown. It goes to show what mummification was to the start of global trade – after all, the dead were embalmed on a massive scale from the upper middle class onwards.
However, Stockhammer emphasized that the process and substances used in the more than 4,000-year-old tradition of embalming were certainly not the same everywhere and at all times as in Saqqara. Rather, the technology developed over time before slowly coming to an end in the first millennium AD.
Presumably various “degrees” of mummification
In Saqqara, the workshop was obviously designed for high turnover: next to a ground floor unit, the real embalming chamber, discovered only in 2016 by Egyptologist Ramadan Hussein, was 13 meters deep – the embalmers used natural cooling.
Right next to it was a pit where the dead were buried. The researchers suspect there were varying “degrees” of mummification – at different prices for the bereaved. (ff/dpa)