Question by melanietaylor27: How did we first discover ancient egyptian mummies?
I am doing a project on ancient Egypt and I need to figure out who and how first discovered, or revealed, ancient mummies, preferably from egypt.(not the discovery of how to make them, but them in general as a society.) How did we find out what hieroglyphics meant? Also if anyone has info on the art and/or proses of mummification that would help too.
Best answer:
Answer by Fluffy 7ala
Mummies have always been known. The medieval doctors of Alexandria in Egypt prescribed powdered mummy as a kind of wonder drug, and mummies were dug up and made into medicine until the 18th century! The earliest public unwrapping of a mummy was conducted in Cairo in 1698.
Through experimentation, the Egyptians discovered that decomposition worked largely from the inside out. Bacteria collected first in the body's internal organs and moved on from there. To stop the putrefaction process, the embalmers realized, they would have to remove the internal organs. This, combined with the discovery of the natural drying agent natron, led to the famous Egyptian mummies we know today.
The science and theology of embalming continued to evolve over the years, so there is no single Egyptian ritual. But the standard practices of the New Kingdom's 18th through 20th dynasties (1570 to 1075 B.C.), an era that produced some of the best preserved mummies, are fairly representative.
The embalmers left the body in the powder for 35 to 40 days to allow enough time for the body to dry completely. During this waiting period, somebody had to stand guard, as the body's strong odor attracted desert scavengers. After the 40 days were finished, the body was brought to the Wabet, the "House of Purification." The embalmers removed the incense and other stuffing from the body cavity and refilled it with natron, resin-soaked linen and various other materials. In some eras, to make the desiccated body more lifelike, the embalmers also stuffed material under the skin in the arms, legs and head. When the body was fully stuffed, the embalmers sewed up the incisions and covered the skin with a resin layer in order to keep moisture out.
The body was then ready for the wrapping.
Bandaging was a very involved process, and it typically took a week or two to complete. While the deceased was drying in the desert, his or her family gathered roughly 4,000 square feet (372 sq. meters) of linen and brought it in to the embalmers. The wealthy sometimes used material that had clothed sacred statues, while the lower classes collected old clothing and other household linen. When the linen was delivered, the embalmers selected the highest-quality material and stripped it into long "bandages" measuring 3 to 8 inches across.
The embalmers then wrapped the body in a shroud and began methodically winding the bandages around the different parts of the body. Typically, they started with the hands and feet, wrapping all of the fingers and toes individually, and then moved on to the head, arms, legs and torso. Once all the parts of the body were wrapped, the embalmers began wrapping the body as a whole. As they applied new layers, the embalmers coated the linen with hot resin material to glue the bandages in place. During this entire process, the embalmers uttered spells and laid protective amulets on the body (for protection in the next world), wrapping them up at different layers.
After the mummy was fully wrapped, the embalmers attached a rigid cartonnage cage to the body and affixed a funerary mask to the head. This new face, which was either a likeness of the deceased or a representation of an Egyptian god, played an important role in the passage to the afterlife. It helped the spirit of the deceased find the correct body among the many Egyptian tombs.
For 1400 years, no one knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs. Virtually all understanding of this mysterious script had been lost since the 4th century AD. The breakthrough to the decipherment of hieroglyphs came in 1799, a year after Napoleon's armies successfully captured the Egyptian Nile Delta. A French soldier, while working at a fort on the Rosetta branch of the Nile River, found a black basalt stone slab carved with inscriptions that would change the course of Egyptology.
The Rosetta Stone (now in the British Museum) was carved with an inscription in three different scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs at the top, demotic script (a late cursive form of hieroglyphs) in the middle, and Greek at the bottom. The translation of the Greek passage revealed that the inscription was a royal edict issued on March 27, 196 BC. The decree recorded the benefits conferred on Egypt by the 13-year-old pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes at the time of his coronation. The Greek inscription was a translation of the upper two Egyptian passages and thus provided the key to deciphering ancient hieroglyphs. Copies of the Rosetta Stone inscription were sent to linguistic experts in Europe. The final breakthrough was made by the Frenchman Jean-François Champollion, who published his results in 1822.
Hope this helps.
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