Top 5 Facts about Mummies

Making a mummy is not just wrapping a corpse in toilet paper or bumper stickers and calling it a day. It's actually a very complex process that was mastered over 4,000 years ago. While the level of intricacy varied depending on the social class of the deceased, but here are some of the fanciest steps: First, they pulled the brain out through the nose with a hook or by using a solvent. They then pulled out organs, cleaned the emptied abdomen with palm wine and other aromatics, filled the abdomen with herbs, sowed it back up, and stored the body in natron, a natural salt, for seventy days. It was only then that the body could be wrapped and presented to the family.

Of course, Pharaohs and other important Egyptians had burial gear made with gold and precious stones, but the burial masks of common folk were made from common materials. Masks were often made from papyrus, an early form of paper, glued together in layers like papier mache. Often, those papyri were previously used! Scientists are now able to carefully un-glue the layers. They’ve found a lot of repurposed boring old personal letters and business documents, but also some classical Greek poems, and sacred texts. Researchers at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia recently found what they think might be the oldest known copy of a biblical text, the Gospel of Mark, which might date back to before the year 90 AD.

While it was believed that the Roman Capua Leg was the oldest prosthetic in existence, new research has shown that an Ancient Egyptian prosthetic toe found on a mummy is older, predating the leg by hundreds of years. An Egyptian Museum in Cairo holds an artificial toe taken from a mummy dated to around 600 BC. Research at the University of Manchester was done by testing two volunteers who were missing a big toe by replicating the prosthetic and Egyptian sandals. Both amputees were able to walk well with the toe, and actually reported it being quite comfortable.

Not only can mummies tell us about history, we don't have to unwrap them to find out! Curators at the British Museum are collaborating with medical experts and performing CT scans on mummies, essentially unwrapping them digitally. This gives them access to amazing insights, including what the mummy looked like and what health problems they had. For instance, they found plaque in the arteries of two mummies, signifying cardiovascular disease, and researchers were shocked at the level of dental decay and disease these people lived with. Through the very modern technology of CT scanning, we are given more personal insights into ancient culture.

While Egyptian mummies get most of the attention, including from us in this video, they have actually been found all over the world, including in South America, where the oldest man-made mummies, the Chinchorros, were created as early as 5000 BC. The Incas mummified their venerated kings, and in 1974, an embalmed Chinese woman from the Hang dynasty was found in a tomb. Amazingly, 4,000 year old mummies were discovered in Xinjiang, China with distinctly European features. Anthropologists believe they are part of a little-known Indo-European people known as the Tocharians.

So, what’s your favourite fact about mummies? For more jewel-encrusted Top 10s and old newspaper Top 5s, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com