In ancient Egypt, mummies were an important carrier for Egyptians to yearn for rebirth. However, before scientific archaeology was as developed as it is now, people used mummies to do many things to open their minds. People used mummies as drug primers in Ming Dynasty, which was also recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica, although Li Shizhen said at that time that these needed textual research.
Wooden mummy coffins on display at the British Museum
Although westerners' interest in mummies increased as early as Ptolemy dynasty, real scientific research had to start from the early 20th century. Before this, many mummies were found and sold in flea markets as strange unearthed objects. Writing here, I was thinking, how strong do I have to be to buy this thing? ) The first scientific X-ray scanning of mummies dates back to 1903, when Eliot Smith and howard carter scanned mummies with the only X-ray machine in Cairo. The first mummy scanned in the world was the mummy of the famous Thutmose IV.
The mummy coffin of Professor howard carter in Tutankhamun.
In recent years, people began to use CT technology to detect the real body of mummies. This detection method can not only protect the mummy from being damaged to the greatest extent, but also reconstruct the mummy's production process from many cross-sectional details.
Mummies were discovered in ancient Egypt as early as 3500 BC. Many of these mummies are directly caused by the environment. As early as the second dynasty, that is, in 3400 AD, mummies began to become a part of Egyptian religious ceremonies because of the advanced technology of preserving corpses in Egypt. Egyptians believe that preserving the body is an important step in the rebirth of the soul after death. About the fourth dynasty, that is, in 2600 BC, the technology of mummification was more developed and mummification was more systematic.
The most expensive process of mummification is to protect the corpse with mummification technology to prevent insects and other germs from invading. According to the ancient Greek historian Dior Dorus, this man used an Ethiopian stone to make an incision on the left side of the body's abdomen, leaving a gouge about five inches long, and then fled the scene in despair. Others threw stones at him and insulted him, which was a symbolic punishment for his violation of human body. Other craftsmen took out most of the internal organs, embalmed them, put them into four stone vessels and buried them with the mummies. The brain of the deceased was also cleanly cut out. Only the heart remains in its original place, because people think that the heart is a place to keep conscience, and it will have to be weighed in the underworld. After the cavity in the chest and abdomen is washed with brown wine, it should be coated with liquid resin to prevent parasites from eating it. About three quarters of the human body is water. How to dehydrate without damaging tissues is the secret of mummification industry. Modern scholars believe that they use dry caustic soda (a natural substance containing hydrocarbons and sodium chloride) to accumulate around the corpse to absorb water, and it takes 35 to 40 days to absorb the water in the corpse.
Now, even with the development of science, we are very shocked by the great achievements of ancient Egyptian civilization. This shock and awe of mysterious and unknown forces may not be explained by scanning mummies layer by layer with CT technology. It is precisely because of this that one legend after another about mummies has lasted for a long time and has become a channel for people to understand the unknown world.
After Pharaoh's death, his body was sent to the clothing department, a special place to purify the body. After washing with soda water, give it to the priest for corpse disposal. Priests first daubed turpentine on Pharaoh's face to prevent facial decay and deformation, then used a tube to penetrate into the cranial cavity from the nostril, constantly stirring and destroying the brain pulp, and then extracted it with a slender tube. The ancient Egyptians thought brain pulp was useless, so it was not preserved. They filled the evacuated cranial cavity with spices and drugs, on the one hand, to maintain the shape of the head, on the other hand, to prevent internal decay.
The next step is to deal with the internal organs, which are the most perishable parts of the human body, so the priest must remove all the liver, intestines, stomach and lungs. They cut open the abdominal cavity of the corpse with a clean knife, carefully cut off organs such as liver and stomach, put it in salt to absorb water, then coated it with turpentine and cooking oil, and then put it in a jar. This kind of jar is called "tent jar", which contains spices and medicines to further prevent organ decay. These jars were placed in a mausoleum not far from the corpse, but during the Middle Kingdom period, the organs treated here were no longer put in tent jars. In the process of dealing with internal organs, the biggest taboo is to damage the heart, because the ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the "source of wisdom" of human beings, and once it was removed or damaged, the Pharaoh would not be able to revive it, so the heart was kept in the chest. After the priests drained the heart with alkaline powder and salt, they washed it with palm oil again, and then put a beetle-shaped amulet on the heart to protect it from damage. The whole process must be kept intact. The Book of the Dead once recorded that three guards took turns to monitor when dealing with Pharaoh's internal organs. If the priest accidentally breaks Pharaoh's heart, he will be sentenced to death.
After processing the internal organs, the priests washed the chest and abdominal cavity of the corpse with palm oil, then put it in a package of fillers such as soda, baking soda powder and leachate, and put the corpse on a bed covered with baking soda powder and salt to dehydrate the whole body. After 40 days, the corpse was removed, the dehydrated substance in the chest was taken out, and preservatives such as cinnamon and rosin were added again to keep the abdomen from deforming, and then the chest was stitched with a fine needle.
At this point, the production of the mummy was basically completed, and the Pharaoh's body was sent to the makeup artist for plastic surgery. The makeup artist made pigments with milk, wine, spices, beeswax, turpentine and tar, and drew clear lines according to the outline of Pharaoh's face to prevent his face from being blurred by mummification. Makeup artists also put wigs, beautiful clothes and precious jewels on mummies. Because the eyes of Pharaoh were deep after his death, makeup artists and priests often filled them with stones or flax. By the time of Ramses III, people began to make artificial eyeballs, and made lifelike porcelain eyeballs through barbecue, which were put into the eye sockets of Pharaoh, so Pharaoh's face was very vivid and lifelike.
Finally, the craftsmen coated the corpse with turpentine, crossed Pharaoh's hands on his chest, and then began to wrap it with linen. The wrapping process is considered as the beginning of farewell, so the whole process is solemn and mysterious. The craftsmen carefully wrapped the linen soaked in palm oil one by one along the limbs and trunk of the mummy, leaving no gap. When the body is wrapped around the face and heart, the priest nearby will pray and recite spells. Craftsmen sometimes put an amulet in the middle of linen. Amulets are usually shaped like scarabs or engraved with Horus's eyes. When the body was wrapped, the wood
In fact, in different periods, the production methods and levels of mummies are also very different. In the early days of the ancient kingdom, Pharaoh's internal organs were not taken out, so it was easy to rot, until the fourth Wang Chaocai began the internal organs treatment procedure. During the Middle Kingdom, people paid more attention to Pharaoh's makeup. They used black pigments to describe Pharaoh's eyebrows, beard and facial features. During the new kingdom, all the brains were removed, and some mummies also removed all the toenails and wrapped them with linen. In addition, in the process of mummification, the fragments cut from Pharaoh are not thrown away at will, but collected and wrapped and buried with the mummy, because these things belong to Pharaoh.
In ancient Egypt, it was generally believed that people could be resurrected after death, so it was not just Pharaoh who made mummies. Ordinary Egyptians also make mummies after death, but the process is much simpler. They often fill boxes with weeds, sawdust or reeds as desiccants and then dehydrate them in the desert. Mummies made in this way are not effective, so they are rarely preserved for a long time.
From the perspective of modern science, resurrection after death is an absurd legend, and it is even more impossible for mummies to resurrect after dehydration. However, in the long history of making Munai, the ancient Egyptians gradually mastered superb medical anatomy technology, drug synthesis and anti-corrosion technology. 1862, American archaeologist Edwin Smith discovered a papyrus manuscript in Luxor, Egypt, about 1600 BC. It systematically introduces the structure of human body, lists 48 cases and describes the symptoms in detail, and divides them into three categories: treatable, refractory and incurable. Later, this manuscript was called "Edwin Smith papyrus" and became the most important in ancient Egypt. It can be seen that the medical level of ancient Egypt has reached a very high achievement.