General Mummy Information

Chinchorro Mummies

"The Chinchorros may well have been the first people in the world to practice mummification. They preserved their dead beginning about 5000 B.C., reaching a peak in 3000 B.C.--around the same time that the Egyptians began experimenting with mummification." -[All material on this website is intended primarily for children, educators, and parents. 1988-2002 James M. Deem]-

"Missionaries working in Peru following the Spanish conquest were disgusted by the Inka's worshiping the mummified remains of their ancestors. During religious festivals the preserved bodies of Inka lords would be lavishly dressed, publicly displayed, and even given cups of chicha, or corn beer, to toast each other and the living. While such practices were abhorred by the Spanish, they played an integral role in the lives of Andean people for whom death marked not the end of a life but a period of transition during which the souls of the deceased were to be cared for and entertained, easing their passage into the afterlife."

Egyptians are well known for ancient mummies, but theirs do not date as far back as the mummies of the Chinchorro people. The Chinchorro were coastal fishers that occupied a piece of coastline running approximately 600 kilometres from Ilo in southern Peru to Antofagasta in northern Chile. Some of their mummies date back to 5000 BC."

Preservations & Identification...

Lesson Plan

"It was startling. More than 5,000 years ago, after burying their dead, the ancient Egyptians learned that the burning desert sands desiccated corpses."

"put a face on the Egyptian prince Uage in 1994 using conventional forensic techniques."

The secret ingredients used by Egyptian embalmers are revealed at last.

"Creating Mummies The first Egyptian mummies around 3000 BC were put into a hole, dug in the desert. The winds and heat of the Sahara and Nubian Deserts dehydrated the body."

"Unwrapping a Mummy by Mouse Click - Computerization helps scientists in non-destructively examining mummies. A very unusual, interesting multimedia scientific mummy site!"

All About Mummies "If not for the Nile River, the ancient Egyptian civilization would never have flourished out there in the desert. Not only did the Nile bring fresh water to the dry land, but it every year it brought an especially important gift: fertile soil."

by The University of Washington School of Medicine

From Ancient to Modern.

1997 Washington Post Article with photos and x-ray images together with further links.

"Mummies -- named after the bitumen tar, mum, used to coat the linen winding strips around them -- have long held an almost magical fascination. The "civilized" world was titillated by Egypt's elaborate cult of death and by the extreme care devoted to preserving bodies for eternity. It was not uncommon in the 1800s to pick up a box of "mummy pills" made of ground, compressed mummies."

Shir Al-Assi, Lebanon. With related images & links

     

---

This Entire Site is Indexed Weekly by the FreeFind Search Engine