History of Embalming

Embalming is the art and science of preserving the deceased’s body by treating them with chemicals so as to hinder the decomposition of their remains. For most of us regular folk today, we understand embalming as the process of which the decedent is made suitable for public viewing in open casket funerals and wakes.

However, this is not always the reason why bodies are embalmed today. For example, the deceased could be embalmed to produce a cadaver to aid medical students and researchers in the study of human anatomy.

These were not always the case. Embalming, though recently made accessible and normalised in certain societies actually has a fascinating and long history, of which circumstances, reasons and methods have developed and evolved across time and space.

Ancient Embalming, Also Known as Mummies

Egypt: The Most Famous

The most famous early instances of embalming are the ancient Egyptians in a procedure of which they call mummification. In this sense, embalming is only one step in the process of becoming a mummy.

In Ancient Egypt, the first mummies were created as a result of burying the body in the deserts. The dry and harsh climate naturally led to the preservation of these bodies — the earliest found dating back to the fourth millennium BCE.

However, as burial practices evolved and tombs were built, elaborate mummification techniques had to be developed and the environment was no longer conducive to preserve the dead (the separation of the body from the ground by placing it in the casket inhibited the bodies from drying out).

Hence, Ancient Egyptians created mummies by removing the internal organs of the deceased. This was due to how these organs were more susceptible to decay. The manner of extracting the organs depended on which organ it was. For the stomach, liver, lungs and intestines, a cut was made on the abdomen by special priests who were knowledgeable regarding human anatomy.

Initially, these organs would be preserved in special canopic jars and kept in the tomb external to the body. However, as the science was developed, the organs would be treated and wrapped to be put back into the deceased. The brain, however, required a hooked instrument that would be inserted through the nostrils to ‘dig’ the brain matter out. This was a delicate affair as any aborted movements could have led to harsh disfigurement of the face. Only the heart would be left intact as it was believed that it was central to a person’s intelligence and overall being.

A type of salt called natron is used to cover the body and packets of it were also placed within the body so as to remove all moisture from the carcass. Once sufficiently desiccated, the natron would be removed from the body, both internally and externally, leaving out a dried-out cadaver. Linen would then be used to wound around the remains, with amulets inlaid in the wrappings, with resin added between layers before finally being secured and placed within the tomb itself, along with furniture and other valuables thought to be needed in the afterlife.

The described process was what was used to preserve several Egyptian pharaohs and nobles, one of the most famous being the child-king King Tutankhamun who died in 1323 BCE, and has since inspired many tales in pop cultures.

Chile: The Earliest

However, the earliest mummies were not King Tut’s ancestors but rather, found in Chile, a couple of millennia before his time. The Chinchorro mummies, at least the ones that were intentionally mummified, date back to at least 5,000 BCE. The starkest contrast between the Chinchorro and the Egyptians is that they took a more egalitarian approach to death; all dead were embalmed and preserved and not exclusively reserved for the elite. In fact, most of the mummies discovered, which are also the oldest, belonged to infants and young children.

As a result of further study, it is thought that the mummification process began with children due to the high infant mortality rate due to poisoning from living and consuming in an arsenic-rich desert. Grief from the loss of young life could have led to them developing painstaking methods to embalm their small bodies, which would eventually be used for the rest of the Chinchorro society. Therefore, it was concluded that the Chinchorro people were more inclusive, while the ancient Egyptians had huge class disparities just from the treatment of their dead.

Though there are similarities to be drawn between the two despite the oceans and years that separate them. For example, both are arid climates were predisposed to let bodies become mummified naturally. Hence, the organic manner of which the deceased were preserved was thought to have inspired these ancient people to cultivate their own techniques to preserve their dead, hence, on the surface, the methods used seem comparable.

The Chinchorro society altered the way they preserved the dead as time progressed and the greatest marker of which method is used in each epoch of time is the paint of which they painted the remains— black (5000 to 3000 BCE) and red (2500 BCE to 2000 BCE). There were even ‘mud mummies’ (3000-1300 BCE) found.

The process between the black and red mummy techniques were similar in the sense that they would remove the organs and dry the body cavity. The difference— beyond the superficial aesthetics— laid primarily in how the organs were extracted. In the black mummy technique, the body was disassembled; the head and limbs were removed from the torso. The thorax and skull were then cut open in order to remove the organs. The flesh would be stripped off from the bones using rudimentary tools made out of stone and a sort of paste was used to fill the body. They would then be painted with black manganese which gave the technique its name, and they would be covered with a mask and wig made of short hair. These mummies were generally younger, hence indicating that the mummification of the Chinchorro people began with their infants.

In the red mummy technique, incisions were then made in order to remove the organs from the body. This was similar to that of the Egyptians. The body, however, continued to be beheaded post-mortem and was only reattached once the brain matter had been extricated. The body would be stuffed with various materials to fill in the gaps left behind from the extracted organs and sticks were used to fortify the structure of the body. Red ochre was then applied to every part of the body but the face, with a wig of long human hair attached. These mummies had a greater variance in ages, which supported the theory that the ritual of mummification initially started with preserving the bodies of those whose lives ended prematurely and extended to include those of all ages.

The mud mummies were embalmed in a totally different manner which did not include extractions of any kind but used a sort of clay mixture that included gypsum that allowed it to be a cementing agent but also dehydrated the body. Its malleable nature thus allowed the ancient morticians to mould as they saw fit, in which they simply used the mixture to encase the body in which therefore eliminated the conditions for decomposition to occur.

The drastic change in the method was thought to be from a better understanding of the environment as well as coming into contact and exchanges with different cultures during that era.

China: The Most Well Preserved

While these above are the most famous and the earliest cases of mummies, the most well preserved and puzzling is actually found in Changsha of Lady Dai.

Unlike the Chinchorro and the Egyptians, the ancient Chinese did not remove any of the organs and the mummification occurred with all of the body intact and not a hair out of place. In fact, the only extraction of any kind happened after the body was enacted two millennia later when an autopsy was performed on it. This allowed Lady Dai to have the most substantial medical profile of a mummy in history — she was found to have been obese from an overly-indulgent lifestyle and died of a heart attack. She was also suffering from osteoporosis

That an autopsy was even considered, let alone even carried out, was a testament to how well-preserved the body of Lady Dai was. While the corpse may look grotesque now as featured in the Hunan Museum, it was said that this state was caused by the body having came into contact with the air around it after it had been removed from its tomb in Mawangdui.

Though amazing of discovery as this was, it is unlikely to be replicated in our history, not only because mummification has been outlawed in most parts of the world but the mummification of Lady Dai still baffles scientists to this day.

Enshrined in four coffins in decreasing sizes akin to that of a matryoshka doll, which was packed with charcoaled and sealed off with clay. This was attributed to have created the necessary conditions for the body to be successfully mummified — the elimination of oxygen and water in the surroundings. Within her coffin was her body wrapped in layers upon layers of silk, which added as an extra buffer to keep moisture away.

This was similar to the other mummies in Egypt and Chinchorro cultures; they eliminated all traces of air and water in the environment so that decomposition would be delayed. However, it does not explain the startling difference in the state of the preservations which led the two to require research conducted by mainly x-rays and CT scans in order to induce as minimal damage to the mummies as possible, as compared to that of Lady Dai, whose skin was soft to the touch, rigor mortis had yet to set in and still had blood found in her veins that were identified to be of type A.

Researchers believed that this could be attributed to the presence of an unknown liquid that is acidic in nature and included trace amounts of magnesium, however, there are also those who refute that theory and thought that the liquid actually was from her body.

Regardless, Lady Dai, like all the other mummies in this article, gave valuable insights into life in ancient civilisations. Be it genetic samples, who they were mummified or the items they were buried; all of these were parts of the puzzle that helped paint a picture of a time that was thought to have been previously lost to us.

While we might not have known how exactly Lady Dai was preserved, we do now know what the upper class of the Western Han dynasty likely ate and all her fanciful riches also hinted at what the culture was like. Though like the Egyptians, Lady Dai was of the upper echelon of society and only those of high social standing were rich enough to afford such lavish burials where their tombs could be discovered by our modern society. Who and how the regular folk lived has since been lost to us to the sands of time.

Hence, these mummies, regardless of time periods, cultures or process to embalm the bodies, are all evidence that ancient civilisations were much more advanced than we had previously thought, having a better grasp of death and decomposition without the advanced fanciful technologies we have at hand today.

It is quite a marvel to see how far we, as the human race, have come since then but also a rather humbling experience to see that we are not as advanced as we thought we were — and that knowledge we once had, had since been lost. While mummification might no longer be practised, and the embalming process and intention are completely different today, hopefully, we now keep better records of our lives to enable the succeeding eras to remember us.