"Raaaaah! I'm Friday Archaeology Blogging, and I'm back from the dead!"

Friday Archaeology Blogging
More Mummies Edition

So, what better way to revive this dormant franchise than through a chat about everybody's favourite ancient Egyptian thing, the redoubtable mummy. We have blogged about mummies before, but for this once we're going to concentrate on the well-known Egyptian variety.

The practice of mummification began very early in Egyptian history, possibly as early as 3300 B.C., and was probably originally accidental. One famous early mummy is one jokingly named "Ginger," on account of his hair colour, who is on display at the British Museum. It used to be, and perhaps still is, common practice among veteran security guards there to send new recruits to "take a cup of coffee to Ginger in the Egyptology department." One assumes that hilarity ensues.


"Ginger"

However, within about seven centuries (!), Egyptians had begun to preserve their dead deliberately, through a process that took over two months, and involved removal of internal organs, packing of the body cavity with a particular type of salt, and a number of other things besides. In the 5th century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus described the Egyptian process of mummification as follows:

"There are men whose sole business this is and who have this special craft. [2] When a dead body is brought to them, they show those who brought it wooden models of corpses, painted likenesses; the most perfect way of embalming belongs, they say, to One whose name it would be impious for me to mention in treating such a matter; the second way, which they show, is less perfect than the first, and cheaper; and the third is the least costly of all. Having shown these, they ask those who brought the body in which way they desire to have it prepared. [3] Having agreed on a price, the bearers go away, and the workmen, left alone in their place, embalm the body. If they do this in the most perfect way, they first draw out part of the brain through the nostrils with an iron hook, and inject certain drugs into the rest. [4] Then, making a cut near the flank with a sharp knife of Ethiopian stone, they take out all the intestines, and clean the belly, rinsing it with palm wine and bruised spices; [5] they sew it up again after filling the belly with pure ground myrrh and casia and any other spices, except frankincense. After doing this, they conceal the body for seventy days, embalmed in saltpetre; no longer time is allowed for the embalming; [6] and when the seventy days have passed, they wash the body and wrap the whole of it in bandages of fine linen cloth, anointed with gum, which the Egyptians mostly use instead of glue; [7] then they give the dead man back to his friends. These make a hollow wooden figure like a man, in which they enclose the corpse, shut it up, and keep it safe in a coffin-chamber, placed erect against a wall." (Herodotus, Histories, II.86)

Interestingly, it was not only humans who were mummified. Mummified animals included:

Cats,


Cat Mummy

Dogs,


Dog Mummy

Crocodiles,


Mummified Crocodile

Birds,


Mummified Hawk

Monkeys,


A mummified monkey of some sort

and even Gazelle:


Mummified Gazelle

Why mummify animals? Well, reasons related to Egyptian religion, and its focus on animals, are a strong possibility, but no stronger, in my opinion, than the "beloved pet" explanation.

The word "mummy" itself first appears in English with its modern meaning in the 17th century, having drawn on Medieval Latin and Arabic sources. It is likely that the word has descended from an ancient Persian word meaning "wax."

So why bring all this up now? We'll, I'll admit that part of it involves getting back into the swing of blogging. However, mummies have been in the news in the past week or so as well, as the mummified body of the Pharaoh Tutankhamon, who reigned from 1333 B.C. to 1323 B.C., has gone on public display for the first time ever, in Luxor, Egypt.


Head of King Tutankhamen

That's all, archaeology-wise for this week, but there will be more on a variety of topics as we get this thing back up and running!

Friday Archaeology Blogging: Lost & Found Edition

Catching up on a few bits of archaeological news that occurred while I was away...

FOUND:



Hatshepsut was fat and bald
8 Jul 2007, 0017 hrs IST,ANI

WASHINGTON: Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's greatest female Pharaoh was fat, balding and had beard. (She wore a false beard along with men's clothing when she proclaimed herself the Pharaoh of Egypt).

Back in June, DNA testing confirmed that a mummy in the Cairo museum was in fact that of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who reigned during the 15th century B.C. Much has indeed been made of the fact that she wore a false beard (as portrayed below), although this ignores the fact that a beard was standard part of pharaonic regalia, and it might actually have been odder if she hadn't worn one (in fact, Ancient Egyptian has no separate word for a female ruler; Hatshepsut is referred to as "king" on inscriptions). Despite the horrendous condition of her health at death (there is evidence that she was suffering from some or all of diabetes, liver cancer, bone cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, rampaging tooth decay, and an unidentified skin ailment), she was, in her day, considered a ravishing beauty. She was also an energetic and competent pharaoh, particularly in the area of building projects, and may also have taken part in a number of military excursions.


Click to enlarge

A brief word on the tooth decay issue. According to the ancient sources, Egyptian bread was extraordinarily hard on one's teeth, due to the presence of sand in the dough, and abcesses like the one that actually killed Hatshepsut must have been fairly common.


Ancient Egyptian teeth

On final extract from the article:

Findings revealed that Hatshepsut was balding in front, but let the hair on the back of her head grow really long. The Egyptian Queen also sported black and red nail polish, a rather Goth look for someone past middle age, reports LiveScience.

Archaeologists have so far failed to find Hatshepsut's storied collection of KMDFM albums.

FOUND:



Well, they didn't find the lake - they knew that was there. It was what was in it that was interesting:

UK divers find 'underwater village'
7/18/2007 2:29:00 PM - Erinn Piller

A team of divers have come across building remains in a lake in Wiltshire that may help solve the mystery of the lost village of Bowood.

Legend has it that the village was 'drowned' 250 years ago when Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, a famous English landscape gardener, flooded the area to make way for a new design he had envisioned for the area.

I'm interested here in how a village that was only "lost" a couple of centuries ago managed to get completely forgotten. One would think that some sort of record would have survived, somewhere.

FOUND:



Father and son discover 10th century Viking hoard buried in field
By Arifa Akbar
Published: 20 July 2007

The most important Viking treasures to be discovered in Britain for 150 years have been unearthed by a father and son while metal detecting in North Yorkshire.

David and Andrew Whelan uncovered the hoard, which dates back to the 10th century, in Harrogate. The British Museum said yesterday that the treasures were of global significance and could shed new light on the period.

Jumping ahead a bit:

After transporting the hoard to their home, they left it on their kitchen counter while they went to report it to their local finds liaison officer in Leeds. It was transferred to the British Museum where conservators carefully examined each item over months.

The British system for monitoring amateur archaeologists works extremely well, most of the time, and there is comparatively little friction between "professional" diggers and the folks who haul their metal detectors around on weekends. There is, in fact, a formal code of conduct, agreed upon by both amateurs and pros, and since it went into effect, the number of reported finds has skyrocketed. What's more, these finds are getting processed properly, with their provenances recorded, as opposed to simply sold off on the black market. This is a very good thing.

This is not:

LOST:



No, they didn't actually lose the Trevi Fountain; as far as I know, it's still there. However, the ancient aquaduct which supplied it was damaged in the course of a construction project:

Pipe blunder robs Trevi's supply

Water is being diverted to the Trevi from another ancient aqueduct
A builder's mistake has cut off the water supply to one of Rome's most famous fountains - the Trevi.

Water company Acea said the wall of an ancient Roman aqueduct which supplies the fountain was damaged by builders constructing an underground garage.

The aquaduct in question is the Aqua Virgo, built originally in the late first century B.C. under the auspices of the same Marcus Agrippa whose name adorns The Pantheon. It was restored in the 8th century A.D., and then again during the Renaissance.



The Aqua Virgo carried 100,000 cubic metres of water per day over a course whose net downslope was about a tenth of a degree, which is pretty snazzy engineering when you think about it. Understandably, the locals are fairly pissed over the damage done to the aquaduct:

"The Aqua Virgo aqueduct was one of two Roman water channels built underground. It was one of the few to escape being destroyed by the barbarians and to survive intact," Mr Signore said.

"Unfortunately, it has been destroyed by their descendants," he added.

Word.

Following Up



Here's another good article on the Altai Princess, with pictures and everything. Much thanks to Alison from Creekside for the link!

Friday Archaeology Blogging

Back to the vaults (I'm feeling very lazy today).

Mummy' causing Siberian 'quakes
02apr04

RESIDENTS of Russia's Altai region say that a 2500-year-old mummy that was dug up 11 years ago is causing earthquakes in this corner of Siberia where shamans are common, and have demanded that it be reburied.

"We must calm people down and bury the Altai Princess," which is being studied by researchers at an institute 600 kilometres away, said Aulkhan Jatkambayev, the administration chief in the area where the mummy was discovered.

After chuckling a wee bit about this particular story, I realized that it does actually touch on a serious archaeological issue - the proper treatment of human remains. Archaeologists have to be aware of local sentiment concerning such finds, and must be willing to accomodate such sentiment. I remember a dig I was on where we found a large pre-Roman chamber tomb, with bodies, and quickly handed the excavation of it over to local archaeologists. It was no big deal, actually, but in some areas, particularly in the new world, archaeologists have not shown proper respect to indigenous human remains, and have alienated the local populations as a result. Anyway, I don't know whether the archaeologists from Novosibirsk were guilty of that in the story above, but they do now have an issue on their hands, and it's one they'll have to deal with if they wish to keep digging in the Altai mountains.
__________________________________
Ok, so I wrote that about two years ago, but I think the principle still stands. I would add only that although it is rather unlikely that the Altai Princess is actually causing earthquakes and bad weather, as far as the archaeologists are concerned, she might as well be. I was also going to sling a picture of the Altay Princess up here just to illustrate who we're talking about, but it is, interestingly, damn near impossible to find one.