Momification

The momification in the ancient Egypt fitted in true a funeral ritual. As soon as the death took place, the body was given to the embalmers in the middle of the professional whining , then was taken along to the west of the city, in a raised place, so that the risings of the the Nile cannot reach it.

Stages of the momification

In a workshop, the embalmers washed the body and proceeded to the various operations of momifications, of which the duration was seven decades, that is to say 70 days. The éviscéré body was dried with the sun, and was coated several layers of plant oils and animal. Then, started the installation of the strips not without to have had the Amulette S on the late one. Then, the body was placed in a Sarcophage painted and engraved. Sometimes one recovered the face of a mask to the features of his appearance.

The family and the whining ones then came to seek the body and a procession led by the priests took along the late one to his last residence. There, the large priest, according to a well defined ritual proceeded to the last incantations: he touched of a gesture crowned the seven openings of the head of the mummy to make revive the directions. The offerings were laid out, and one sealed fall it.

Of course, if all occurred thus at the time of dead easy people, it was different for less fortunate people. But however, a momification took place, less pushed, but always presents, because any Egyptian was to be able to reach a life after death.

Of course, all these stages evolved/moved much during time, and the description which will be made here is that described by Hérodote.

At the time of died of an Egyptian, his family brought the body to the embalmers, and negotiated the tariffs of the service lengthily. When it dead their was brought, the embalmers show with the carriers models of corpses out of wooden, imitated by painting, and they state that they say worthiest of attention, which was that of the god of which I cannot pronounce the name here. They show after that one the second, who is of a less price; and finally the third less coûteux.

The families brought themselves in general the flax, recovered of old cloths or clothing, to make the strips essential to the embalming.

The least frequent embalming among Egyptians of middle-class, but of rigor among royal characters was a “embalming of first class”. It was composed of four stages.

The excerebration

The first stage consisted in extracting the brain while passing by the nasal fossae. This stage was done thanks to an iron hook.

Helped of this hook, the embalmer crossed the Ethmoïde and reached the brain. The brain was pulp tiny room then ran out by the practiced opening. In the second time, the Natron (natural soda solution found in the salted lakes) was cast in cranium to dissolve the remainders of the brain, then the cranium was emptied. Then, they ran a made resin resin of conifers supplemented of beeswax and scented plant oils.

The evisceration

Then, with a sharpened Ethiopian stone, they split the side, make leave all the intestines the abdomen, wash it with wine of palm tree, powder it with crushed perfumes and finally recousent it after having filled it of crushed pure myrrh, cinnamon and other perfumes, whose incense alone is exclu.

More precisely, the incision made it possible to leave the intestines and the various bodies: only the heart - seat of the thought and the feelings - remained or was positioned back after momification. Sometimes, however, it was replaced by a beetle. The internal organs thus were withdrawn, cleaned then placed out of packages. These packages, either were then given in the body, or laid out in four sacred vessels which name the canopes.

Dehydration

The body was then treated with the Natron. The embalmers placed inside the trunk of the linens containers of the natron and the aromatic substances. This mixture of carbonate and bicarbonate of soda has hygroscopic properties and attracts the moisture of fabrics.

The process of Dessication was then supported by the very dry climate of Egypt. The body was thus exposed to the sun. This treatment lasted between thirty and forty days.

After dissecation of fabrics, the embalmers washed the body and oignaient it with various oils and resins, in order to return to the skin a certain flexibility.

Bandelettage

This operation started with the installation of amulets surrounded by papyrus on the body of the late one, then one filled the abdominal cavities and the rib cage using plugs with impregnated flax of resin, sawdust or even an aromatic lichen (mummies of the Pharaons Siptah and Ramsès {{IV}}).

The enucleation was often practiced and the eyes replaced by prostheses. Came then the installation from the strips, strips also in flax. The installation started with the ends to go up towards the root of the members. The body was emmailloté in its entirety with often seven successive fabric envelopes. One then surrounded the mummy of a shroud and placed it in a sarcophagus.

For less fortunate people, the process was much more summary:

For those which prefer the average embalming and want to avoid great expenditure, the embalmers make the preparatory following. After having filled their syringes with oil of cedar, they inject this oil in the abdomen of death, without opening it, nor to withdraw the entrails from them, and they have care to retain the liquid so that it cannot escape. Then, they plunge the body in natron and time leaves there prescribed, then they make leave the cavities the oil of cedar it has enough force for all to carry with it, intestines and internal organs; it very liquefied. Outside the natron desiccated the flesh, there remains death only the skin and the bones. These made things, they return it in this état.

There existed even an embalming even more summary for the use of the poor class:

The embalmers make in the intestines a horseradish injection and dry the body in the natron during the seventy days; then they return it so that one it emporte.

One can thus see while following this long process which he asked a great know-how and a great application of his technicians, embalmers.

The momification: a genuine technical die

Definition of a technical die

A first concept to be defined is that of technical object . If one seeks his definition in the dictionary, one finds: “Solid Thing considered as a whole, manufactured by the man and intended for a certain use”. One can in makes give a more precise definition according to four points of view:

First of all, the object comes from a existing Artifact. Its creation can be the fruit of the state of the know-how of the time, like hazardous discovery.
It can be then simply regarded as a Machine, i.e. an apparatus which makes it possible to carry out a certain work or to fulfill a certain function, either under the control of an operator, or in an autonomous way.
According to the point of view of the manufacturer or producer, the technical object is a produced. Indeed, an object results from an activity, a manufactoring process putting itself concerned of other objects, but also a know-how of the technician.
According to finally the point of view of the tradesman and the consumer, the object becomes a Marchandise, a product which is sold and which is bought.

This definition of the technical object makes it possible to give a definition of a technical die . It is a technical activity which allows creation then the marketing of a technical object. More generally, a technical die globalize and described the interrelationships in a whole technical branch and shows the sequence and the junction of its various units.

One can summarize a technical die by the diagram:

Moreover, one die does not only live, it coexists with other dies which feed it. It also nourishes needs for the human group to which it corresponds. One can thus include/understand a technical die according to four types of needs:

to nourish itself,
to defend oneself,
to move,
to distract itself.

Lastly, a die nourishes resources and innovations of its time, but can be also slowed down or even blocked by a group or a company.

How the momification answers the technical definition of die

If one thus follows the definition presented previously, it is necessary for us initially to include/understand in what a Momie can be regarded as a technical object at the time of the Pharaons.

The mummy object is well an existing artefact. Indeed, the first mummies were created accidentally by the desert. The Égyptiens noticed it and used their knowledge in order to use this advantage for better passing in the other world. A mummy is also a machine. Indeed, for the Egyptians, death is dissociation between the container (the carnal envelope) and the impalpable contents (the heart). To ensure the eternity of the life, the container should then be also preserved: the body. The mummy is this means. It is in a genuine machine to cross the passage life-death without encumbers.

According to the point of view of the Embalmer, the mummy is a product. Indeed, it results from an activity, a long manufactoring process putting itself concerned of other objects and tools, but also a true know-how of the technician.

Lastly, a mummy is goods. A mummy is ordered and been expensive. There is even a range according to the price which one can put at it.

One can thus completely consider the momification under the glance of a technical die and even, it is in this manner that it should be considered. Indeed, the little of found writings on this subject shows us the little of importance which for the Egyptians the practice in itself had. What was essential, it was for them to be able to reach the life after death, and the mummy was their means of arriving there. The embalmers were true technicians whose mission was to prevent the natural process of decomposition of the bodies. With this intention, they used all the techniques available then to conclude this mission: medicine, biology, chemistry, textile, trade…

One can then represent the momification with the diagram:

Moreover, the technique of the momification did not cease evolving/moving. She knew difficult technical beginnings, crossed all the Egyptian religious reforms, and even perduré during the Roman invasion, to die out with the preponderance of the Church at the 2nd century. For this long period, this die benefitted from the technical and cultural contributions of all the currents which could cross Egypt.

Sources

To include/understand the techniques of momification, one formerly thought of taking as a starting point certain murals. In fact, these paintings represented only the manufacture of sarcophagi. Two scenes left the batch. They were found on the sarcophagus of Murtirdiès to 2nd-I er. One can see there a naked, black body, lengthened in front of priests and a character carrying a mask of Anubis, god owner of the embalmers, then, upright on whom two priests pour drinkings.

One also found accounts containing of allusions to the momification on papyruses, as that of a letter which the Pharaon addresses to Sinouhé: The evening, explains the Pharaon to him, you will be oint with oil of pine and wrapped strips made by TAIT, the goddess of weaving.

Unfortunately, these documents are satisfied to briefly evoke the embalming and do not give a precise technical explanation of it. They are not to in no case handbooks being able to give an account of a know-how. It was to be simply transmitted of wire father, or Master with apprentice.

The only true document written concerning the various stages of the momification is the vision that had of it Hérodote at the time of one of its voyages in Egypt with the O C. Its writings made it possible to better know this technique, and were packed and corrected by the current discoveries made thanks to the tools as radiography.

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