drying out and covering body with natron ancient egypt

Nevertheless, to the extent of our knowledge, no detailed insights into the mummification techniques used for preserving largely putrefied cadavers have been reported.

Most of these mummies contain parts of a single specimen, although some of them preserve parts of several individuals of the same species, or elements of several individuals from different species. Cases have been described where bundles contained detached body parts or parts of decaying animals. Some bundles were made from several complete young individuals (especially in crocodiles mummies). Votive animal mummies were not exclusively created from complete and well-preserved carcasses.

McKnight to date, 86 (57%) contained a single complete individual. Some mummies contain a single animal (e.g. A wealth of research into the topic and direct analyses of animal mummies, demonstrated that a large diversity of animal remains was preserved in these mummies. Īncient votive animal mummification was conducted using a wide range of protocols. 722–332 BC) into the Roman era (around the third century AD), Egyptians mummified millions of animals as part of their animal cult. This unexpected finding demonstrates that earlier knowledge obtained from textual and other archaeological sources does not sufficiently reflect the diversity of mummification protocols implemented by Ancient Egyptians.įrom the end of the Late Period (ca. organs, muscles, and even most of the skeleton) was removed to cease further putrefaction. Except for the head and the extremities of the limbs, everything beneath the skin of the crocodile (i.e.

Here, we present detailed insight into the complex post-mortem treatment of a decaying crocodile cadaver in preparation for mummification. This state-of-the-art non-destructive imaging technique revealed the complete interior anatomy of the mummy in three dimensions. Multi-scale propagation phase-contrast X-ray synchrotron microtomography was used to visualise an ancient Egyptian crocodile mummy housed at the Musée des Confluences (Lyon, France). Although Ancient Egyptians mummified millions of animals over the course of one millennium, many details of these mummification protocols remain unknown.

Drying out and covering body with natron ancient egypt