Embalming ‘Recipe’ In Ancient Egypt Was Used 1,500 Years Earlier Than Previously Thought

AncientPages.com - An international team of researchers from the Universities of York, Macquarie, Oxford, Warwick, Trento and Turin,  have carried out the first extensive forensic tests on an intact prehistoric mummy and found that embalming ín ancient Egypt was taking place 1,500 years earlier than previously accepted.

Dating from c.3700-3500 BC, the mummy has been housed in the Egyptian Museum in Turin since 1901, but unlike the majority of other prehistoric mummies in museums, it has never undergone any conservation treatments, providing a unique opportunity for accurate scientific analysis.

Like its famous counterpart Gebelein Man A in the British Museum, the Turin mummy was previously assumed to have been naturally mummified by the desiccating action of the hot, dry desert sand.

Plant oil

Using chemical analysis, the team uncovered evidence that the mummy had in fact undergone an embalming process, with a plant oil, heated conifer resin, an aromatic plant extract and a plant gum/sugar mixed together and used to impregnate the funerary textiles in which the body was wrapped.

This ‘recipe’ contained antibacterial agents, used in similar proportions to those employed by the Egyptian embalmers when their skill was at its peak some 2,500 years later.

Classic mummification

The team’s results show the fact that the mummy came from Upper (southern) Egypt, which offers the first indication that the embalming recipe was being used over a wider geographical area at a time when the concept of a pan-Egyptian identity was supposedly still developing.

“Having identified very similar embalming recipes in our previous research on prehistoric burials, this latest study provides both the first evidence for the wider geographical use of these balms and the first ever unequivocal scientific evidence for the use of embalming on an intact, prehistoric Egyptian mummy,” said archaeological chemist and mummification expert, Dr Stephen Buckley, from the University of York’s BioArCh facility, involved in the study.

Buckley added that the preservative treatment contained antibacterial properties in the same proportions as those used in later ‘true’ mummification.

Genetic investigation

Dr Jana Jones, Egyptologist and expert on ancient Egyptian burial practices from Macquarie University, said: “The examination of the Turin body makes a momentous contribution to our limited knowledge of the prehistoric period and the expansion of early mummification practices as well as providing vital, new information on this particular mummy.

“By combining chemical analysis with visual examination of the body, genetic investigations, radiocarbon dating and microscopic analysis of the linen wrappings, we confirmed that this ritual mummification process took place around 3600 BC on a male, aged between 20 and 30 years when he died.”

Professor Tom Higham, Deputy Director Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, said: “There are very few mummies of this ‘natural’ type available for analysis. Our radiocarbon dating shows it dates to the early Naqada phase of Egyptian prehistory, substantially earlier than the classic Pharaonic period, and this early age offers us an unparalleled glimpse into funerary treatment before the rise of the state.

“The results change significantly our understanding of the development of mummification and the use of embalming agents and demonstrate the power of interdisciplinary science in understanding the past.”

Research is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Original story

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