Mummy, Ancient Egypt: mystery and mysticism

Mummy, Ancient Egypt - probably everyone heard about this. So many millennia swept over the gray massifs of tombs and pyramids, and they still attract and fascinate people from all over the world. Mysteriousness, gloominess, extraordinary flowering of crafts, developed medicine, exquisite culture and rich mythology all make the ancient country alive and interesting.

Why mummified the dead

It must be said that the mummies of Ancient Egypt (the photos of many of them make them shudder) is a separate phenomenon, still causing heated controversy. Is it possible to exhibit them in museums? After all, after all, it is still the bodies of the dead ... Anyway, tourists in many countries of the world can go and look at long-dead people whose earth shells are partially saved from the corrupting influence of time. Why did they create them? The fact is that the ancients believed in the existence of a person after death directly in the place of his burial. That's why luxurious tombs and pyramids were built for the kings, which filled everything that could be useful to them after death. And for the same reason, the Egyptians tried to keep the very body of the deceased from destruction. For this, mummification was invented.

The process of creating a mummy

Mummification is the preservation of the corpse with the help of special techniques and preparations while maintaining the integrity of its outer shell. Already at the time of the 2nd and 4th dynasties, the bodies were wrapped in bandages, keeping from decomposition. Over time, the mummy (Ancient Egypt succeeded in creating them) began to be made much more complicated and sophisticated: the interior was removed from the body, and special plant and mineral preparations were used for conservation. It is believed that at the time of the 18th and 19th dynasties, the art of mummification achieved real bloom. Moreover, it must be said that the mummy (Ancient Egypt created many of them) could be made in several ways, which differed in complexity and cost.

Testimonies of the historian

The historian Herodotus says that the embalmers interviewed the deceased's relatives, offered them a choice of several methods of preserving the body. If an expensive option was chosen, then the mummy was made in this way: first a part of the brain was removed (through the nostril with an iron hook), a special solution was injected, the organs of the abdominal cavity were excised, the body was washed with palm oil and rubbed with incense. The belly was filled with myrrh and other fragrant substances (incense was not used) and sewn up. The body was placed for seventy days in soda lye, then extracted and wrapped with bandages, lubricating the gum with gum instead of glue. Everything, the ready mummy (Ancient Egypt shows them a lot) was given to relatives, was placed in a sarcophagus and was kept in a tomb.

If the relatives could not pay the expensive method of conservation and chose the one that was cheaper, the masters proceeded as follows: the organs were not cut out, just the cedar oil was injected into the body, decomposing everything inside, and the corpse itself was also placed in the liquor. After a certain period, the body, drained and deprived of innards, was returned to relatives. Well and absolutely cheap method, for poor people is an injection in a stomach of a juice of a radish and after lying in liquor (the same 70 days) - returning native. True, Herodotus did not know or described a couple of important points. First, scientists are still not very clear how the Egyptians managed to dry the body, doing it extremely skillfully. Secondly, the heart was never removed from the body, and the rest of the insides were placed in special vessels stored in the tomb next to the mummy.

End of mummification

It must be said that mummification persisted for a long time in Egypt and was practiced even after the introduction of Christianity. According to the doctrines of Christianity, the body does not need to be preserved after death, but the priests could not inspire it to their flock. Only later Islam came to an end to the creation of mummies. Now the photo of the mummy of Egypt certainly adorns the catalog of any large museum, in which there is a department of this ancient state.