Jim Pipe - Egyptian Mummies, A Very Peculiar History: With Added Mushy Bits

Title Page

KINGS & QUEENS, A VERY PECULIAR HISTORY

With added mushy bits

Written by

Jim Pipe

Created and designed by David Salariya

Publisher Information

First published in Great Britain in MMXII by Book House, an imprint of

The Salariya Book Company Ltd

25 Marlborough Place, Brighton BN1 1UB

www.salariya.com

www.book-house.co.uk

Digital edition converted and distributed in 2012 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

Editor: Jamie Pitman

Assistant editor: Jodie Leyman

Artists: Mark Bergin, Carolyn Franklin, John James, David Salariya, Nick Spender, Lyn Stone, Shirley Willis

The Salariya Book Company Ltd MMXII

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The Salariya Book Company apologises for any omissions and would be pleased, in such cases, to add an acknowledgement in future editions.

Visit our website at

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or go to

www.salariya.com

for free electronic versions of:

You Wouldnt Want to be an Egyptian Mummy!

You Wouldnt Want to be a Roman Gladiator!

You Wouldnt Want to Join Shackletons Polar Expedition!

You Wouldnt Want to Sail on a 19th-Century Whaling Ship!

Dedication

To Meliss, a great Mummy (and beautifully preserved)

JP

Map of Ancient Egpyt

Introduction: What Is A Mummy?

When you hear the word mummy, what do you think of? King Tutankhamun buried deep in his tomb, or a stiff-legged zombie on the warpath? Until about three hundred years ago, the word was only used to describe mummies from ancient Egypt. It probably comes from the Persian word mumiya , which means bitumen or pitch. Today, we use this black, sticky substance to cover roads. So what does it have to do with ancient corpses?

It all goes back to AD 639, when the Arabs conquered Egypt. Though they banned the Egyptians from making any more mummies, they couldnt resist taking a peek inside their mysterious tombs. The bandaged bodies they discovered were covered in a black sticky goo which reminded them of bitumen, so the Arabs took the Persian word for bitumen and called these bodies mumiya . They were wrong, it wasnt bitumen, but as the years went by, mumiya turned into the English word mummy. (Not everyone agrees: some historians believe the word mummy may also have come from the Egyptian Coptic word mum which means wax, an important material used in mummification.)

Today, however, the word mummy is used to describe any person or animal whose flesh and skin has been preserved after death (skeletons and fossils arent considered mummies, as no soft tissues such as flesh or skin are preserved) including the baby mammoth discovered in the icy wilderness of north-west Siberia (in northern Russia) in 2007.

All sorts of mummies have been uncovered over the years. What makes them different from each other is how they are preserved. Some were created deliberately: the Cloud People of Peru and the Guanche people of the Canary Islands preserved their relatives after death. Other mummies were created by accident. Some bodies were pickled after being buried in sand, tar or mud. Others were freeze-dried in caves or preserved by acidic bog waters.

Normally when an animal dies, bacteria (tiny organisms in the body) eat away at the flesh until only the bones are left behind. Bacteria need water to grow, however, so if a body dries out soon after death, it stops rotting and turns into a mummy. Whether dried by chemicals, extreme cold, or the heat of the desert, a mummy can remain preserved for thousands of years. Remarkably, some mummies have leathery skin and joints that can still be moved.

Some famous mummies

King Tutankhamun (nicknamed King Tut) is the only Egyptian pharaoh (king) whose tomb was discovered intact. The solid gold mask and other fabulous treasures found alongside his body have amazed people the world over since their discovery in 1922.

One of the best-known mummies in the British Museum in London is known as Ginger, thanks to his shock of red hair. Buried around 3600 BC, he was turned into something resembling a giant prune by the hot, dry sand that encased his body. A female mummy, known as Gingerella, was buried alongside him.

According to legend, in 323 BC Alexander the Great (the king of Macedonia who conquered Persia) was buried in a golden coffin filled with white honey. This pickled his body for over 1,000 years until it was stolen.

English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) asked a surgeon friend to preserve his body after he died. Seated as if he was deep in thought, his well-dressed skeleton is still on display at University College London.

Though mummies have been found all over the world, Egyptian mummies have always grabbed the headlines. They were famous even in ancient times, when the Greek travellers Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus brought amazing tales of the dead back from the banks of the Nile. When the Romans conquered Egypt, they wanted to learn the secrets of the Egyptian mummymakers. Unfortunately, they couldnt read the ancient Egyptian tomb writing, hieroglyphics. (Things went from bad to worse when, in 48 BC, Julius Caesar accidentally set fire to the famous library at Alexandria, on the Egyptian coast, which contained thousands of ancient scrolls.) The famous Queen Cleopatra was also fascinated by the ancient Egyptians. Although from a Greek family, she learnt the Egyptian language and copied the ancient style of dress, perhaps to remind other Egyptians that she was one of them.

In more modern times, it was the Victorians who really sparked an interest in ancient Egypt. In the 19th century, wealthy English tourists travelling to Egypt brought back mummies as holiday souvenirs. Then they invited all their friends round for a party to watch while the mummy was unwrapped. The Victorians also loved reading scary stories about mummies coming back from the dead stories that movie audiences still enjoy today.

By the 20th century, spooky stories gave way to serious study. People began to appreciate that these amazing relics were once living people. They wanted to learn more about how the ancient Egyptians lived, and why they took so much trouble to prepare for the afterlife. Experts known as Egyptologists carefully studied the ancient texts written on tomb walls and coffins, while X-rays allowed them to investigate mummies without damaging them.

It seems that the Egyptians enjoyed life so much they wanted it to go on forever even after they died. However, they believed their soul couldnt enter heaven unless their body lasted too. Thats why Egyptian mummymakers, or embalmers (embalmer comes from balsam, the sweet-smelling oils that were rubbed on dead bodies to help preserve them), turned dead Egyptians into mummies to preserve them. Amazing tombs were built for the dead to live in often more beautiful than the buildings meant to house living people and kings were buried with fabulous treasures to enjoy after death.