History of Embalming

CHAPTER IV.

EMBALMING AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS

Since the ignorance we are in, relative to the language of this great nation, places it out of our power to know, of ourselves, the causes and processes for the preservation of dead bodies, let us follow the recital of ancient authors, let us endeavour to detect, not by the imagination, but by positive facts, by the study of invariable exterior conditions, the different data of the question of embalming among the Egyptians.

In the first place, if we make allowance for all that the successive perfection of the arts, luxury, or the love of distinction could add to simple preservation, we shall arrive, with Rouelle, to this conclusion, that the work of embalming is reduced to two essential parts: first, the drying of the body, that is to say, removing the fluids and grease which they contain; secondly, to protect the body thus prepared, from external humidity and contact of the air. We have already seen all the aid which they derived from their climate to fulfil the first condition: a detailed description will teach us what their industry enabled them to add to it. As to the second, the nature of their caverns powerfully contributed.

These vast cavities, says Pelletan, sheltered from the inundations of the Nile, have, without doubt, originally furnished the materials for the monuments of Thebes, and the architects of the day thus hollowed out the tombs of families in elevating their palaces. Their whole surface, from the entrance, even to the deepest recesses of these dark excavations, are covered with sepultures and fresco paintings. Each framed subject forms so many little pictures which touch each other, and the figures of which are not more than two or three inches in height, so that the whole extent of these double walls, the development of which is incalculable, has been the object of minute labour. The sculptures are in bas-relief, and covered with equable tints, but lively, and in very good preservation. The points of rock unconnected with the work, have been covered with a composition perfectly solid, and so durable, that, as yet, no other degradation is observable, than that produced by the efforts of some travellers to carry off fragments of it. Perspective is always wanting in these pictures; the bodies are viewed in full, the faces in profile; but the design is pure and the proportions just; we find nothing to indicate ignorance in the artist; which presumes for the Egyptians, if not great perfection in the arts, at least a great popularity in their practice. The subject of these paintings are domestic scenes, and generally followed by a funeral procession; from whence it may be inferred, that they refer to the life of the man enclosed in each of the lateral niches. The temperature of the caverns is 20° R.

It appeared to us convenient thus to give a summary of the conditions of drying, and of the ulterior preservation, before presenting descriptions which have been more or less accurately transmitted to us, of the part that man has had in this operation.

Herodotus, Diodorus Sicculus, and Porphyrus, who have written with the greatest detail on the funerals of the Egyptians, will afford us the first instructions.

Herodotus. “Mourning and funerals are conducted after this manner: when a man of consideration dies, all the women of his house (oiketes) cover the head and even the face with mud; they leave the deceased in the house, girdle the middle of their bodies, bare the bosom, strike the breast, and overrun the city, accompanied by their relations. On the other side, the men also girdle themselves and strike their breasts; after this ceremony, they carry the body to the place where it is to be embalmed.”

The following, after Diodorus Sicculus, (book 1st, vol. i. p. 102, § xcii.) is the ceremony of sepulture among the Egyptians: “The relatives fix the day for the obsequies, in order that the judges, the relations, and friends of the dead may be present, and they characterize it by saying, he is going to pass the lake; afterwards the judges, to the number of more than forty arriving, they place themselves in the form of a semi-circle beyond the lake. A batteau approaches the shore, carrying those who have charge of this ceremony, and in which is a sailor, whom the Egyptians name in their language Charon. They say, further, that Orpheus having remarked this custom in his voyage in Egypt, took occasion from it to imagine the fable of hell, imitating a portion of these ceremonies, and adding to them others of his own invention. Before placing in the batteau the coffin containing the body of the deceased, it is lawful for each one present to accuse him. If they prove that he has led a sinful life, the judges condemn him, and he is excluded from the place of his sepulture. If it appear that he has been unjustly accused, they punish the accuser with severity. If no accuser presents himself, or if the one who does so is known as a calumniator, the relatives, putting aside the signs of their grief, deliver an eulogium on the deceased without mentioning his birth, as is practised among the Grecians, because they considered all Egyptians equally noble. They enlarge on the manner in which he has been schooled and instructed from his childhood; upon his piety, justice, temperance, and his other virtues since he attained manhood, and they pray the Gods of hell to admit him into the dwelling of the pious. The people applauded and glorified the dead who were to pass all eternity in the abodes of the happy. If any one has a monument destined for his sepulture, his body is there deposited; if he has none, they construct a room in his house, and place the bier upright against the most solid part of the wall. They place in their houses those to whom sepulture has not been awarded, either on account of crimes, of which they are accused, or on account of the debts which they may have contracted; and it happens sometimes in the end that they obtain honourable sepulture, their children or descendants becoming rich, pay their debts or absolve them.” Orpheus communicated to the Greeks these usages of the Egyptians, applied to hell. Homer, following in his steps, adorned his poetry with them: “Mercury,” says he, “his wand in his hand, convoked the souls of the candidates.” And further on: “They traversed the ocean, passed near Leucadia, entered by the gate of the sun, (Heliopolis,) the country of dreams, and soon attained the fields of Asphodelia, where inhabit the souls who are the images of death.”

But to return to the recital of Herodotus. “There are in Egypt, certain persons whom the law charges with embalming, and who make a profession of it.

“When a body is brought to them, they show the bearers models of the dead in wood. The most renowned represents, they say, him whose name I am scrupulous to mention; they show a second, which is inferior to the first, and which is not so costly; they again show a third of a lower price. They afterwards demand after which of the three models they wish the deceased to be embalmed. After agreeing about the price, the relatives retire; the embalmers work alone, and proceed as follows, in the most costly embalming. They first withdraw the brain through the nostrils, in part with a curved iron instrument, and in part by means of drugs, which they introduce into the head; they afterwards make an incision in the flank with a sharp Ethiopian stone.

“The body being extended upon the earth, the scribe traces on the left flank the portion to be cut out. He who is charged with making the incision, cuts with an Ethiopian stone, as much as the law allows; which having done, he runs off with all his might, the assistants follow, throwing stones after him, loading him with imprecations, as if they wished to put upon him this crime. They regard, indeed, with horror, whoever does violence to a body of the same nature as their own. Whoever wounds it, or in one word, whoever offers it any harm.” (Diodorus, book I, t. i. p. 102.)

“They withdraw the intestines through this opening, clean them, and pass them through palm wine, place them in a trunk; and among other things they do for the deceased, they take this trunk, and calling the sun to witness, one of the embalmers on the part of the dead, addresses that luminary in the following words, which Euphantus has translated from his vernacular tongue. ‘Sun, and ye too, Gods, who have given life to men, receive me, and grant that I may live with the eternal Gods; I have persisted all my life in the worship of those Gods, whom I hold from my fathers, I have ever honoured the Author of my being, I have killed no one, I have committed no breach of trust, I have done no other evil: if I have been guilty of any other fault during life, it was not on my own account, but for these things.’ The embalmer, in finishing these words, shows the trunk containing the intestines, and afterwards casts it into the river. As to the rest of the body, when it was pure, they embalmed it.” (Porphyr., De abstinentia ab esu animalium, book 17, § 10, p. 329.)

“Afterwards they fill the body with pure bruised myrrh, with canella and other perfumes, excepting incense; it is then sown up. When that is done they salt the body in covering it with natrum for seventy days.” (Natrum, with the intention of carrying off, and drying the oily, lymphatic, and greasy parts; but this ought to have been the first operation, for if they had commenced with filling the body with myrrh and aromatics, previous to salting it, the natrum, acting on the balsamic matters, and forming with their oils a soapy matter, very soluble and readily carried off by the lotions, would have destroyed the greater part of the aromatics. Besides, Diodorus does not mention natrum.) “It is not permitted to let them remain longer in the salt. The seventy days elapsed, they wash the body and entirely envelope it in linen and cotton bandages, soaked with gum Arabic, commi, which the Egyptians used generally in place of glue.13 The relatives now reclaim the body; they have made a wooden case of the human form, in which they enclose the corpse, and put it in a chamber destined for this purpose, standing erect against the wall. Such is the most magnificent method of embalming the dead. Those who wish to avoid the expense choose this other method; they fill syringes with an unctuous liquor which they obtain from the cedar; with this they inject the belly of the corpse without making any incision, and without withdrawing the intestines; when this liquor has been introduced into the fundament they cork it, in order to prevent its ejectment; the body is then salted for the prescribed time. The last day, they draw off from the body the injected liquor; it has such strength that it dissolves the ventricles and intestines, which come away with the liquid. The natrum destroys the flesh, and there remains of the body, only the skin and bones. This operation finished, they return the body without doing anything further to it.

“The third kind of embalming is only for the poorer classes of society. They inject the body with a fluid named surmata; they put the body into natrum for seventy days, and they afterwards return it to those who brought it. As to ladies of quality, when they are dead, they are not immediately sent to the embalmers, any more than such as are beautiful or highly distinguished; these are reserved for three or four days after death. They take this precaution lest the embalmers might pollute the bodies confided to their care.

“It is reported that one was surprised in the act, with a woman recently dead, and that on the accusation of one of his comrades.”

The preceding recitals have been the subject of numerous commentations, discussions, and researches. It is astonishing that Herodotus has omitted desiccation; but it naturally took place during the time consecrated to preparation. Some assert that the body was in the first place salted, and subsequently penetrated with resinous and balsamic substances, which, incorporating with the flesh, prevented putrefaction: others pretend that the body, after having been salted, was dried, and that it was not until after this desiccation that the resinous and balsamic substances were applied. A simple inspection of the mummies is sufficient to reject the first opinion. What union, indeed, could these last named matters have contracted with the fluids of the tissues? and how can we conceive from thence, that bodies often filled with corrupted serosity, could have resisted the intestine effects of such active causes in producing decomposition?

M. Rouelle thought that the natrum was a fixed alkali, which acted after the manner of quick-lime, despoiling the bodies of their lymphatic and greasy fluids, leaving only the fibrous and solid parts. Thus viewing in this manner the Egyptian process, it removes an error into which Herodotus has fallen on the subject of the first class of embalming. It is there stated, that they filled the belly of the corpse with myrrh, canella, and other perfumes, except incense, and that afterwards they put it into the natrum and then washed it. But of what use would have been these resinous matters, with which the alkali of the natrum would soon form a soapy mass, which the lotions would have carried off, at least, in great part? It is much more reasonable to suppose that these balsamic and resinous substances were not applied to the bodies until after they were withdrawn from the natrum.

The same author points out another inaccuracy, in what Herodotus has taught us on the bandages of the mummies. Very few mummies, says he, are enveloped agreeably to the description of Herodotus, that is to say, the linen bandages are not glued together with gum alone, applied directly to the body when simply dried without any resinous substances. Such kind of embalming is the least costly, although Herodotus describes it as the richest and dearest. The mummy preserved in the cabinet of St. Geneviève, and the two which are in that of the Celestins, may throw some new light on this passage of Herodotus, and confirm my conjectures. These mummies have two kinds of bandages; the body and the limbs are each separately invested with linen bandages, endued with resin or bitumen, and they are so intimately united together that they form but one mass. This is doubtless the reason that some authors have believed that this thickness was only embalmed flesh. There are other linen bandages without any bituminous substance, which envelope the whole body; both the arms are crossed upon the stomach, and the legs are glued together; these mummies are swaddled in new bandages, or, if you please, by this last bandage, just as infants are swaddled; these bandages are yellow, particularly those of the mummy of the cabinet of Saint Geneviève, and are absolutely destitute of resinous substance. We may, then, readily conclude, that these bandages have been only simply invested with gum. It appears that Herodotus had forgotten to describe the use of the first bandage, employed to retain the resinous matter on the surface of the body, and having probably seen among the embalmers, or elsewhere, some bodies swaddled like infants, he only described the second bandage.

If we examine with attention, the mummy of Saint Geneviève, and those of the cabinet of the Celestins, it will be perceived that the second bandage is equally a suit of ordinary embalming; for the mummy of the Celestins, of which the first bandage has been removed, no doubt in order to see the process of embalming, has the bands of the first bandage of a very clear and coarse linen: the bands of that of Saint Geneviève, on the contrary, are much finer, whilst the substances of the embalming of the two mummies are the same.

I am persuaded that mummies seldom come to us with the second bandage, and that the preservation of those of the mummies of the cabinet of Saint Geneviève, and of the Celestins, is only due to the state of the cases which hold them, or to the peculiar care of those who sent them.

In fine, Rouelle has analysed the substance of embalmings, and the result of the analysis made on six mummies gave him for two, amber, for the four others, Jew’s pitch or pisasphaltum, a mixture, into the composition of which, Jew’s pitch enters. Rouelle met with no traces of myrrh in any mummy. From these facts he arrives at the following conclusion: “Our experiments, then, furnish us with three materially different embalmings. The first, with Jew’s pitch; the second, with a mixture of bitumen, and the liquor of cedar, or cedria; and the third, with that mixture, to which they have added resinous and very aromatic matters.”

We confine ourselves to these reflections upon the processes described by the ancients, and given by them as those alone practised in Egypt.

We are going to cite some passages from the very remarkable memoir of M. Rouyer, from which it will be readily perceived that they were ignorant of several methods in use among these people. Nevertheless, it is just to give here some explanations which throw new light upon the sources which we have reproduced; they are principally extracted from the memoir of the Count de Caylus.

The exhibition of models on the part of the embalmers, had reference to the richness of the work demanded, and to the expense of the chosen form. The first model, which Herodotus had scruples in naming, was probably the figure of some divinity, (Isis.) Herodotus does not mention the price, and it is probable, that Diodorus has made his valuations without being any too well acquainted with them. According to his estimation, the first cost one talent, (about nine hundred dollars of our money;) the second, twenty mina, (three hundred dollars;) the third, a trifle, (vague.) Diodorus continues in these terms: “The office of burying is a particular profession, which, like all others, has been learned from infancy. Those who exercise it, go to the relatives of the deceased with a scale or rate of charges, and request them to make a selection. Having agreed, they take the body and give it to the officers whose duty it is to prepare it.”

In the head, which was sent by M. de Caylus, the skull had been actually pierced through the nostrils, and the bottom of the right orbit opened. As to perfume, the exception in favour of the incense is probably made out of respect to the divinity. He observed no trace of incision, nor were they at all necessary. The extreme dryness of the skin, and the solidity it acquires by the bitumen, renders such operation useless.

The Egyptians employed their natrum as we employ lime, to prepare and tan leather. Also kommi, or gum Arabic of Senegal. As respects bandages, they had many kinds; whether as regards the quality of the linen, or the manner of arranging them, more simple or more complex. As many as a thousand ells of these narrow bands have been found on a single mummy.

Diodorus, after speaking of those who make the incision, adds: “those who salt come afterwards: these officers are highly respected in Egypt; they hold commerce with the priests, and the entrance to sacred places is open to them, the same as to persons who are themselves sacred. They assemble around a corpse which has just been opened, and one of them introduces his hand through the incision into the body, and withdraws all the viscera, excepting the heart and kidneys. Another, continues he, washes them in palm wine and odoriferous liquors; they afterwards anoint the body for thirty days with cedar, gum, myrrh, cinnamon, and other perfumes, which not only contributes to preserve the body in its integrity a very long time, but which also causes it to shed a very sweet odour. They then return to the relatives, the body restored to its original form, in such a manner that even the hair of the eyelids and eyebrows remain unruffled, and the corpse preserves its natural expression of countenance and personal bearing. Many Egyptian families, having, by this means, preserved a whole race of ancestors, experience an inexpressible consolation in thus beholding them in the same figure, and with the same physiognomy, as if they were still living.”

As regards those who have been killed by a crocodile, or who have been drowned in the river, the inhabitants of the city nearest to which the body has been cast ashore, are obliged to embalm it; to adjust it in the most magnificent manner, and deposit it in the sacred tombs. Neither the relatives or friends are permitted to touch these bodies; they are embalmed alone by the priests of the Nile, considering them as something above humanity. – (Herodotus.) Are these sacred tombs those of the God Apis? Were there places of sepulchre different from the caves and pyramids?

The expense and care required for the embalming of princes must have been immense, as may be conjectured by the following fact. A portion of mummy preserved in the cabinet of Saint Geneviève, merits all the eulogiums that could be given to an object of this kind. It consists of the foot, leg, and thigh of an infant two or three years old; the care with which this embalming was made, was known to those who presented it to the cabinet, for they had written upon the box which contained this precious relic of the art, mummy of the little prince of Memphis. This denomination has no other foundation, perhaps, than the nature of the work, and the sensible difference observed between this and other mummies. The surface of the flesh is black, and so smooth that it may be compared to a fine Chinese varnish; the flesh has not altogether preserved its softness, but all the thickness and plumpness peculiar to little children can be distinguished, as well as the articulations and all the little wrinkles of the fingers. The nails are perfectly preserved and well set on; they have neither colour nor gilding, although they appear to have been gilded. The bandages do not appear to have been imbued with the same bitumens used for other mummies; the colour which they have acquired by the dried balsamic materials, as might be anticipated, resembles that of canella, although the odour, which is agreeable, has no analogy to that aromatic.

The bandages are fine, detached, and proportioned to the body which they cover; they are arranged with the greatest care and repeated a great number of times. Besides, the thigh bone, of which there is about four fingers breadth uncovered, has suffered very little alteration in its colour, nothing more than what the air alone might produce. Rouelle, with whom M. de Caylus visited this mummy, remarked, on piercing with a pin the sole of this foot, that the skin resembled stretched parchment, and was empty beneath – all of which proves a richer and more extensive preparation destined for princes. We may add to this conjecture, that the cases of touchstone, or of basalt, always expensive on account of their hardness, cases so rare that only three or four have been found, may be supposed to have been made only for princes, and even the more eminent of those.