DOI Artikel:
Smith, Grafton Elliot: A contribution to the study of mummification in Egypt: with special reference to the measures adopted during the time of the 21st dynasty for moulding the form of the body
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11325#0015
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M. Maspero remarks :—" La momie paraît avoir été desséchée
plutôt qu'embaumée" 1
Apart from thèse doubtful examples of embalming ail the real
mummies in the Cairo Muséum belong to the period included
between the latter part o£ the 17th dynasty and the beginning o£
the 6th century of the Christian era.
During this period of almost two thousand years the mode o£
embalming underwent very considérable changes. In the 18th,
19th and 20th dynasties the methods adopted aimed solely at the
préservation o£ the tissues of the body itself ; and this was
accomplished with a success that can only have been the resuit o£
long âges of experiment. At the beginning of the 21st, or pos-
sibly in the last years of the 20th, dynasty the embalmers
introduced an entirely new practice, to the study of which this
memoir will be mainly devoted. This new practice was an
attempt to restore to the shrunken and distorted body the form
which it had in great part lost during the early stages of the
embalming process : this was done by packing under the skin
linen, sawdust, earth, sand and various other materials to be
mentioned later. At a later period the embalmers abandoned
this extraordinary practice and devoted there chief attention to
simulating the form by means of the wrappings rather than by
stuffing the body itself: then we find a rapid détérioration in the
manner of préservation of the body and at the same time a great
élaboration in the art of bandaging. This reached its height in
Ptolemaic times. In the later (Roman) period the extensive use
of bitumen as a preservative led to the rapid degeneration of the
art ; and in Christian times when the use of pitch was discarded
the embalmers returned to the use of common sait, which may
possibly have been the earliest means employed for the préservation
of the body.
i Maspero, op. cit., p. 397.
M. Maspero remarks :—" La momie paraît avoir été desséchée
plutôt qu'embaumée" 1
Apart from thèse doubtful examples of embalming ail the real
mummies in the Cairo Muséum belong to the period included
between the latter part o£ the 17th dynasty and the beginning o£
the 6th century of the Christian era.
During this period of almost two thousand years the mode o£
embalming underwent very considérable changes. In the 18th,
19th and 20th dynasties the methods adopted aimed solely at the
préservation o£ the tissues of the body itself ; and this was
accomplished with a success that can only have been the resuit o£
long âges of experiment. At the beginning of the 21st, or pos-
sibly in the last years of the 20th, dynasty the embalmers
introduced an entirely new practice, to the study of which this
memoir will be mainly devoted. This new practice was an
attempt to restore to the shrunken and distorted body the form
which it had in great part lost during the early stages of the
embalming process : this was done by packing under the skin
linen, sawdust, earth, sand and various other materials to be
mentioned later. At a later period the embalmers abandoned
this extraordinary practice and devoted there chief attention to
simulating the form by means of the wrappings rather than by
stuffing the body itself: then we find a rapid détérioration in the
manner of préservation of the body and at the same time a great
élaboration in the art of bandaging. This reached its height in
Ptolemaic times. In the later (Roman) period the extensive use
of bitumen as a preservative led to the rapid degeneration of the
art ; and in Christian times when the use of pitch was discarded
the embalmers returned to the use of common sait, which may
possibly have been the earliest means employed for the préservation
of the body.
i Maspero, op. cit., p. 397.