![]() ![]() You're not necessarily preserving it," he added. But then when you're using incense resins on the body, you're making the body divine and into a godly being. "Even the word for incense in ancient Egyptian was 'senetjer' and literally means 'to make divine.' When you're burning incense in a temple, that's appropriate because that's the house of a god and makes the space divine. "In ancient Egyptian history, we've found that they were also appropriate gifts for a god." "Look at frankincense and myrrh - they're in the Christian story of Jesus and were gifts from the three wise men," Price said. Natron was used by the ancient Egyptians in temple rituals and was applied to the statues of gods for cleansing.įurther, the incense commonly associated with mummies likely served as a gift to the gods. ![]() Dubbed 'natron', the salt was a naturally occurring blend of sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride and sodium sulphate sprinkled abundantly around lake beds near the Nile. However, the salt that Egyptians used for mummification was different. "So, they assumed that what was being done to the human body was the same as the treatment for fish," said Campbell Price, the museum's curator of Egypt and Sudan. "The idea was that you preserve fish to eat at some future time," Price said. Earlier, they believed that ancient Egyptians were preserving their dead in a similar fashion as one would preserve fish simply because both processes involved one common factor: salt. It is ironic how it's this England-based team that is correcting our misgivings regarding the purpose of mummification, considering it was Victorian-era English researchers who wrongly brought forth the idea in the first place. Researchers at the Manchester Museum in England are addressing misconceptions about mummification's intended purpose as a part of an exhibition called "Golden Mummies of Egypt", slated to open early next year.Īnd a recent reveal suggests that the elaborate burial technique was actually a way to guide the deceased toward divinity and had nothing to do with preserving the dead. If you're having a 'my life is a lie' moment, you're not alone. ![]() So imagine our surprise when we heard that this elaborate process of mummification was never intended to preserve the bodies of the deceased at all! The painstaking process involved embalming the body, removing the internal organs, thoroughly drying it out and finally wrapping it in layers and layers of linen. Egyptian mummification, which is thought to have begun in 2600 BCE, is counted among the best methods for preserving a body and is no less than art. ![]()
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