Mastering Mummification - Part II

With all the materials in place, Brier and Ronn Wade, director of Maryland’s State Anatomy Board began the mummification process. What they discovered was - it’s not as easy as it sounds.

In theory, a hook is inserted into the brain through the nostril and the brain is pulled out the same way the hook came in. What Herodotus neglected to mention in his description though was how difficult a task this was going to be. Brier and Wade had to hammer the hook up through the cribiform plate before the hook could even enter the brain, and once they broke through they found the brain far too solid to just pull back out through the nostrils. So, they “scrambled things about a bit” as “The Mummy”’s heroine might say. This scrambling, which Brier likens to the motion of a kitchen whisk in “A Thoroughly Modern Mummy”, almost liquefied the brain, enabling them to invert the body and “pour” the brain matter out through the nostril. Finally, they wrapped the hook with strips of the linen they would later use to wrap the mummy and reinserted it into the brain cavity through the nose. They use this instrument to swab out the head and clean any remaining brain matter.

Next step, the internal organs. One would assume in order to remove the internal organs, that the Egyptians simply made an autopsy-like incision running the length of the entire abdomen. They didn’t. Remember, the Egyptians literally thought their dead would rise again and walk in their own bodies in the afterlife. That’s why they went to such great trouble to preserve the body for all eternity. Brier examined many mummies and found that the abdominal incision was typically made on the left side of the body and it was only approximately 3 ½ inches long! Obviously, the Egyptians could not see most of what they were doing as they removed and, in some cases, dissected the internal organs. During their mummification experience, it became evident, to Brier and Wade that the Egyptians didn’t really know much about anatomy. For example, Egyptians often left the kidneys behind inside the mummies, and there was no Egyptian word for kidney in ancient times. (One could almost have assumed this anyway, based on their confusion of the heart and the brain. The Egyptians believed the heart had great importance and it was highly valued in the afterlife. They

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