Nature’s Scent beads & Picking Brains - Mummies
a Mummy’s tomb
Hello and welcome back to another week of Rooted! This week we are continuing our monster mash mini-series by taking a closer look at an ancient trend to die for- mummies!
We’ll do a quick overview of how exactly mummies were made, then we’ll dig deep into the different herbal elements and how exactly they work! Without further ado, let’s dig in!
First- lets get clear on what exactly mummies are- they are the preserved bodies of humans or well respected animals from egyptian, incan, Australian aboriginal, Aztec, African, and some european cultures. There are all kinds of different methods and rituals that were involved with mummification, and each culture has it’d own unique reasons behind why they would want to preserve the body.
Today we’re going to be mostly focused on the general process, but a lot of this information is going to be specific to the egyptian practice of mummification because we have the most information about their process and they have the best preserved mummies, which helps a lot in terms of research!
The ancient egyptians mummified highly respected members of society mostly, as well as holy animals like cats and crocodiles, but this was NOT a closed practice for them, meaning that if you could afford to be mummified, you absolutely could be- you just wouldn't have nearly the amount of fanfare (or later fan FICTION).
The main reason for mummifing was to preserve the body and prepare the spirit for their journey into the after life. A lot of the steps we will be going over had a purpose beyond preservation, tied directly to what they believed would be needed to not just be comfortable, but successful in whatever life is just beyond this one.
For starters, this was NOT a quick thing- some reports say that the process of making a mummy could take up to seventy days. They started by carefully removing all of the internal organs, taking special care to remove the brain as they did not want to damage the face- it was important they stay looking as close to they did when alive as possible.
After the organs were removed, they were preserved and stored in separate jars called canopic jars which were believed to keep the organs safe. This is with the exception of the heart, which was left in place and believed to house all intelligence and emotion in the body.
Once the organs are removed, the body is dried out with a mixture of salts and left alone to basically cure. Once that was done, the body would be lightly cleaned, then stuffed to make sure any parts that may have sunken in or just needed a little extra fluff.
Post stuffing, the body would be wrapped with hundreds and hundreds of yards of linen, with priests often anointing the bandages and writing sacred symbols on them to bless the body.
After this, the body would be prepared for a last rites of sorts, where priests would “open the mouth” by blessing different parts of the body and painting them with a variety of dyes and paints.
After that, the body was entombed, then people placed their offerings and the romb was sealed off to be protected.
Now that we’ve got that under our belts, lets get to the plants in all of this!
For starters, Cassia and Cinnamon were often used to both cover the scent of the body and help to preserve it a bit. This is because on top of holding their smell AND being huge status symbols, they are also anti-fungals- stopping fungus by damaging the cell walls before the spores can really get started- especially yeast, which is kind of all over our bodies and honestly most things.
Next up we have cedar oil, which was used in anointing the body and was typically actually juniper vs true cedar. This oil would have been highly scented and likely also helpful in preservation as juniper has strong antimicrobial properties.
Next up we have henna, which would have been mixed with the cedar oil and used as a sort of dye on the hair, nails, and as a paint to decorate the bandages.
After that we have Juniper berries, which were placed on the body and around the tomb to also help to mask the scent.
Onions were sometimes called upon to help stop rot, and were placed over the eyes, in the pelvis, and over the ears, helping to add an additional layer of wrapping that also fought against microbes and bacteria that otherwise would have rapidly begun breaking down the body before the salt could cure it.
A variety of Resins (pine or myrrh) were also used to help seal the body and brushed over the wrappings to not just harden the bandages, but to also help preserve the body by once again fighting microbes and keeping out any external moisture.
Saw dust and lichen were also often used as the stuffing we mentioned earlier, which was great because it was easy to manipulate, and doesn’t often harbor bugs or anything, meaning there would be no creepy crawly surprises over the course of this 70 day ritual.
That’s all i’ve got for this week, but we’ll be back next week with another monster mash episode. See you then!
Sources:
https://www.si.edu/spotlight/ancient-egypt/mummies
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/galleries/egyptian-death-and-afterlife-mummies
https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/mummies
