What are facts about mummies?

Answer 1

oases, and the eastern delta of the Nile River are providing water. Mummification was not limited to Egyptians. Greeks and Romans who resided in Egypt were also mummified in Egyptian fashion.

The process of mummification continued in Egypt as late as the fifth century A.D., then slowly tapered off when Christianity took hold.

From 400 to 1400 A.D. there was a common belief that mummia was a potent medicine with curative powers. This mummia was obtained by grinding up actual mummies.

Many travelers who visited Egypt from Europe in the 1600s and 1700s took mummies home and displayed them as centrepieces or in curio cabinets.

The study of Egyptian antiquities, known as Egyptology,became a popular academic discipline in the 1800s. The event of "unwrapping a mummy" became a most popular attraction and draw to European museums.

In 1896, British archaeologist William Flinders Petrie began using X-ray techniques to examine mummies without unwrapping them.

In the early 1970s, scientists began using computed tomography, or CAT scans, to create images of the insides of mummies. This aided them in determining information about the embalming and wrapping processes the Egyptians used.

During the 1980s and 1990s, scientists extracted DNA from mummies in hopes of gathering information about ancient Egyptian patterns of settlement and migration, as well as information on diseases and genetic characteristics.

Recent approaches to studying mummies involve the interdisciplinary cooperation of Egyptologists, physicians, radiologists, physical anthropologists, and specialists in ancient languages.

Recent discoveries of mummies in the Sinai Peninsula, the desert ant information about the regional mummification styles.

It has long been thought that artificial (i.e., human-made) mummification in Egypt began with the early pharaohs. But artificial mummification seems to have begun much earlier, and it was not reserved for royalty at the start.

The ancient Egyptians mummified animals as well as humans. They probably made more ibis mummies than any other type of animal mummy--but cat mummies are a close second.

Being an embalmer was a solid career choice handed down from father to son in ancient Egypt.

Because ancient Egyptians believed it was the centre of memory and intelligence, the heart was removed and mummified separately from the body.

During the industrial Revolution Mummies were burned to power trains. This was because the oils that were used to preserve them was highly flammable.

The earliest known Egyptian "mummified" individual dates back to approximately 3300 BC. This individual, nicknamed 'Ginger' because of the colour of his hair, is not internationally renowned despite being older than other famous mummies, such as Rameses II or Seti I.

Scientists interested in cloning the DNA of mummies have recently reported findings of clonable DNA in an Egyptian mummy dating to circa 400 BC.