Scientists have revealed long-awaited details of the practice of embalming, which the ancient Egyptians used to preserve corpses.
The clues came from the analysis of chemical residues in vessels from Egypt’s only known embalming workshop and nearby burial chambers. The mummification specialists who worked there prepared special mixtures for embalming the head, washing the body, treating the liver and stomach, and also prepared the bandages used to wrap the body, the researchers reported on February 1 in Nature .
“The ancient Egyptian embalmers had extensive chemical knowledge and knew what substances to put on the skin to preserve it, without even knowing about bacteria and other microorganisms,” Philipp Stockhammer, an archaeologist at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, said at a Jan. 31 press conference. .
The conclusions are drawn from chemical residues inside 31 vessels found in an Egyptian embalming workshop and four vessels discovered in an adjacent pair of burial chambers. Inscriptions in the workshops contained names of embalming substances, instructions for embalming (such as “put on head”), or both. All artifacts are dated to the 26th dynasty of Egypt, which came to power between 664 BC. and 525 BC
Newly discovered mixtures for embalming mummies
Five vessels had a label antiu . This substance was believed to be a fragrant resin called myrrh. Antiu in Sakkari, however, consisted of oil or resin from cedar, juniper, or cypress mixed with animal fats. The inscriptions on these banks indicate that antiu could be used alone or in combination with another substance called sefet .
Three vessels from the embalming workshop had a label sefet , which researchers usually described as an unidentified oil. In Saqqara sefet was a fragrant ointment based on fat with the addition of herbal ingredients. In two pots with safes were animal fats mixed with oil or resin from juniper or cypress. The third container contained animal fats and elemi, a fragrant resin from tropical trees.
Explanation of ingredients antiu and sefet at Saqqara “expands the study of mummification from before,” says Egyptologist Bob Brier of Long Island University in Brookville, N.Y., who was not involved in the study.
The Egyptians may have started mummifying their dead as early as 6,330 years ago. Mummification procedures and rituals focused on keeping the body fresh so that the deceased could enter what was believed to be an eternal afterlife.
Embalming and mummification procedures likely changed over time, says team member Maxime Raze, a biomolecular archaeologist also at Ludwig Maximilian University. The embalmers’ mixes at Saqqara may not match, say, those used some 700 years ago for King Tutankhamun.
Instructions for embalming mummies
Other vessels from the Saqqara embalming workshop and burial chambers displayed labels and, in some cases, instructions for dressing the head, preparing linen mummy bandages, washing the body, and treating the liver and stomach. Inscriptions on one jar indicated an administrator who performed embalming procedures, mostly heads.
The chemical residues inside these pots consisted of mixtures specific to each embalming procedure. Ingredients included cedar, juniper, or cypress oils or resins, pistachio resin, castor oil, animal fats, heated beeswax, bitumen (a thick oily substance), elemi, and a resin called damar.
Most of these substances have been found in previous studies of chemical residues from Egyptian mummies and embalming vessels in individual tombs, says Egyptologist Margaret Serpico of University College London. But elemi and dammar resins have not previously been associated with ancient Egyptian embalming methods and are “very unexpected,” notes Serpico, who was not involved in the new study.
Elemi was an ingredient in masterful concoctions used to treat the head, liver, and bandages wrapped around the body. Chemical signatures of dammar appeared in a vessel from one of the burial chambers that contained the remains of a number of substances, indicating that the container was used to mix several different mixtures, the researchers said.
The specific properties of elemi and dammar that helped preserve the bodies of the dead remain to be investigated, Stockhammer said.
A large chain of trade in ingredients for embalming mummies
Elemi resin came to Egypt from tropical parts of Africa or Southeast Asia, while dammar comes from Southeast Asia or Indonesia, Rageot says. Other embalming substances found at Saqqara come from southwest Asia and parts of southern Europe and northern Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea. These finds are the first evidence that ancient Egyptian embalmers depended on substances that were transported through extensive trade networks.
According to Stockhammer, the Egyptian embalmers at Saqqara took advantage of a trade network that already connected Egypt with sites in Southeast Asia. Other Mediterranean and Asian societies also engaged in long-distance trade during the heyday of ancient Egypt.
It’s no wonder the ancient Egyptians imported embalming ingredients from faraway lands, Brier says. “They were great traders, they had a limited supply [місцевих] wooden products and very much wanted these substances to achieve immortality.”
