“Duc et ad æmathios manes, ubi belliger urbis
Conditor hiblæo perfusus nectare durat.”
This use of honey is further confirmed by J. B. Baricel, André Rivin, and R. P. Mènestrier. Pliny, book xxii. chap. 24, says that honey is of such a nature, that bodies placed in it do not corrupt.
They made use also of wax for embalming, as we read in Emilius Probus, at the end of the life of Agésilas: “Having fallen sick, he died, and that his friends might the more conveniently carry him to Sparta, for want of honey they enveloped his body in wax.” The Persians, on the report of Cicero, employed the same matter: Persæ jam cerà circumlitos condiunt, ut quam maximè permaneant diuturna corpora.
The ancients also made use of a sort of brine, the composition of which is unknown. Cœlius Rodiginus, in his book of antiquities, remarks that, during the pontificat of Sextus IV. they found on the Appien way the body of a girl, retaining still all the beauty of her face, the hair of a golden blond, and tied up with bands, also gilded—it was thus preserved in a brine, which entirely covered it, and it was thought to be the body of Tulliola, the daughter of Cicero. And Valateron assures us that, by a preparation of an unknown salt, the body of another female was also found entire in a mausoleum near Albania, in the time of Alexander VI.; this Pope ordered it to be thrown secretly into the Tiber, fearing the superstition of the people, who run from all parts to see it, because the body still retained its beauty, although thirteen centuries had elapsed since its deposition.
The Jews, after closing the mouth and eyes of the dead, shaved them, washed and rubbed them with perfumes, then enclosed them in a coffin along with myrrh, aloes, and other aromatics, in great profusion.
The Egyptians had a great number of processes for embalming. The valuable work of M. Rouyer places this fact beyond a doubt: natron, cedria, bitumen, asphaltum, pisasphaltum, different aromatic substances to drive off insects, varnishes, more or less costly, were used in their different preparations; finally, bandages multiplied, and endued with gum Arabic, closed all access to air and humidity. The mummies of the Guanches, which so closely resemble some of those of Egypt, were sewn up in skins, after having been stuffed with aromatics and dried in the sun.
The moderns have employed for the preservation of dead bodies, numerous substances both fluid and solid; spirits of wine, oils, tinctures, compound liniments, brines, etc., constitute the first class; powders, composed of all parts of balsamic and aromatic plants, form the second.
We shall examine, hereafter, more in detail these various systems of preservation—nevertheless, what we have mentioned, proves that they were only in a slight degree efficacious. And even the so much boasted methods of Clauderus, Derasieres, &c., and the wonderful secrets of Debils, Ruysh, Swammerdam, appear to us only applicable to retard a little while the progress of decomposition. The following is extracted from the article Anatomical Preparations of the Dictionary of Medical Sciences:
“It is said that Ruysh possessed the means of preserving the flexibility and other vital properties of the different tissues of our bodies. When the Dutch anatomist sold his cabinet to the Czar, Peter I., he gave a manuscript in which he made known the composition of a preservative fluid, expressly stating that this liquor was nothing more than spirits of wine; the spirit of malt, to which was only added, during distillation, a handful of white pepper. But it appeared that Ruysh had not given the true composition of his liquor, or rather, that he had exaggerated the virtues of it, for it is far from possessing the effects which have been attributed to it. After the death of Ruysh, they thought they had discovered his means of preserving. In 1731, Geoffroy was charged to make experiments; but the results did not correspond to the anticipations.”
We find in a note added by Strader, at the end of his edition of the works of Harvey, another version relative to the proceedings of Swammerdam, which is as follows:
“It is with reason,” says he, “that we prefer to the Egyptian method, an art which so hardens dead bodies, that they lose nothing of their substance, and change neither in colour, nor in form; that they leave to the anatomist all desirable leisure for examination, without presenting any effusion of blood, nor that disgusting filth so repugnant to the delicate practitioner, and which frequently prevents the examination of the entrails of subjects.
“I shall publish, as was communicated to me, this admirable process, in which I was formerly liberally initiated by Cl. Dn. Swammerdam, which is beyond all praise. It is necessary, then, to obtain a pewter vessel of sufficient size to contain the body to be embalmed; place at the distance of about two fingers depth of the bottom, a hurdle of wood, pierced with many holes; place the body on this hurdle, and pour on oil of turpentine to the height of three fingers, keep the vessel quiet, tightly, and less and less hermetically covered during a certain space of time; in this manner the oil, of a penetrating nature, will infiltrate by degrees into the body on which it is poured, and will expel the aqueous portions, the principal cause of the fermentation which tends to corruption. This aqueous portion descending by its specific gravity, and distilling through the flesh, will, in time, occupy the space between this and the bottom, and during this time the more subtle part of the balm will exhale, as the vessel is less closely covered; the more it evaporates, the harder the body becomes, and will imbibe the thick lees of the oil, the effect of which may be compared to that of a gummy marrow: it can then, consequently, remain out of the liquor and in open air without corrupting, without any fear of putrefaction, or of the worms. As to the time necessary to allow the body to remain in the balm, this varies according to the nature of the subject to be preserved. The following rules on this head must be observed:
“The embalming of an embryon of six months, may be accomplished in about the same length of time.
“The skeleton of the same embryon requires only about two months.
“The membranes of the heart, three months.
“The vessels of the liver, and of the placenta, cleared of their flesh, one month.
“The vessels of the spleen, ten days.
“The intestines, one month.
“A certain time is thus assigned for other vessels, which would not be difficult to discover or determine by experiments.
“It is always necessary to pay attention, that during this operation, the parts be a little contracted and compressed in an equable and convenient proportion; the coction of the body prevents the skin forming wrinkles, whether it be made before the deposition in the oil, or after it has soaked there for two months. In order that the subject may retain all its beauty and whiteness, it must be macerated for several days in alum before embalming it. In order that the members may retain a convenient form and position, they ought to be plunged into the balm on the commencement of winter, about the month of November, to expose them afterwards to the cold, not to freeze, but to harden them lightly.
“In following this process, with care, we destroy entirely all the germs of putrefaction concealed in the body, to such a degree, that the entrails even are profoundly penetrated with this balm, and are able to resist the constant attacks of the air.
“If it is desired to preserve a part, without the process above mentioned, the blood must first be extracted by a brine, and the salt subsequently withdrawn by rain water, and, after having placed it in the shade to prevent its putrefying, endue it with a mixture composed of three quarts of oil of turpentine, and one quart of mastic, which will communicate a brilliant appearance to it, and even a sort of light crust, particularly if a greater quantity of mastic is used in the preparation.
“As regards the preparation of the members and their appendages, a particular process must be observed. The vessels must be well dried, of whatever matter they may consist, and afterwards place the rods in them well fitted to the cavity; and previously endued with suet, which is to be carefully withdrawn in a few days; thus the members, large and small, ought to be placed in cotton, well soaked in suet, to be stretched in the direction of their length, as, for example, we stretch the meshes of capillary vessels on sticks rubbed with suet, from whence they are readily detached by means of a little fire placed beneath, which causes the suet to melt.
“But sufficient has been said for the present; perhaps, hereafter I shall have a more favourable opportunity to relate other similar facts, or even more admirable; for I have seen with Swammerdam, of whom I have spoken above, various pieces embalmed with so much talent, that, besides all their natural properties, they possessed also that of being always soft and flexible; I must forbear transmitting for the present this process, in order not to lessen the èclat of the fine work I have just described, and in introducing a still more beautiful one on the scene, etc.”
After so precise a description, I hoped to make something out of this process; but nevertheless, I must confess, that after having repeated these experiments with the greatest care, I was no more successful in my trials than Mr. Geoffroy was in 1731; only I have proved that, when bodies are prepared according to my process, and afterwards plunged into turpentine, they preserve a remarkable freshness and suppleness. After much reflection upon this subject, I have come to the conclusion, that Ruysh and Swammerdam have never made known but a part of their system of preservations, and that, previously to immersing the body in either of the two liquids of which we have spoken, they subjected them to some preparation. In fine, those very authors who boast of the admirable perfection of their processes, have not left a single preparation to show as an example to justify their praises; and, as a proof of their exaggeration, we have the testimony of an author (Penicher) profoundly versed in this matter. “Those authors,” says he, “who boast of having embalmed without emptying the great cavities, and by confining themselves to injections by the mouth, by the anus, or by holes made in the armpits, would be embarrassed to show satisfactory results from such superficial embalming; for, sooner or later, these nuisances will overcome all the embalmer’s industry, and all the expense he may have been at to conquer a bad impression. Could there exist a more singular proof of this, than what happened a few years ago in the church of R. R. P. P., respecting the body of a lady of first quality? The corpse had been placed in a leaden coffin, and enclosed in another of wood, and placed within a marble mausoleum well cemented; after which, in order to fulfil the will, it was embalmed, and enveloped in two hundred pounds of aromatics and perfumes; two kegs of aromatic spirits of wine were introduced through an opening, so that the body was completely submerged in it. Nevertheless, at the end of twelve years or thereabout, it produced so dangerous and malignant a stench through the cracks which occurred in the coffin, by the expansion of the drugs, that one of the priests, who chanced at the time to be saying mass in his chapel, fell extremely ill from this cause, and the assistants were obliged to withdraw, being unable to support the effluvia.
“The priests were under the necessity of exhuming the body, with the consent of the archbishop, and family of the deceased; they removed it to the garden, placed it in a ditch, and covered it with quick-lime, which not destroying the flesh, composed of oily, sulphurous, and resinous parts, it was found necessary to remove the flesh from the body, in order to replace the skeleton in the mausoleum; to such a degree did the bad qualities of the entrails and viscera, corrupted by disease, surpass the good qualities of the balms.”
The imperfections of these methods grow out of their very nature. Along side of these embalmings, practised in an empyrical manner, without any reference to the qualities more or less efficacious, of the aromatic and balsamic substances, I can place infants several months old, subjects most susceptible of dissolution, and which, after a simple injection, have remained exposed to the air in a moist room. At the end of two years of this exposure, they displayed a great suppleness of the tissues, without the least trace of decomposition. Those which I enclosed in cases, in the midst of an atmosphere of my own discovery,[E] have preserved exactly the expression and colour of the face, that they had at the moment of death.
CHAPTER II.
NATURAL MUMMIES.
Whilst man agitates and torments himself in employing all his activity to produce a feeble result, nature, all-powerful, by means of simple causes, produces wonderful effects. Man disputes with the rivers, the ocean’s waves, some few acres of land, which he protects with great labour from their overwhelming influences. At the voice of nature, elements, until now foreign to each other, approximate, combine, and unite in the bosom of the earth, and suddenly throw up from the middle of the ocean vast isles and new continents. He has need of all his industry to make the sap circulate in a few etiolated plants; she, on the contrary, confers life and motion to all beings, or strikes them with torpor or death, according as she elevates or depresses the sun a few degrees in the horizon.
In order to preserve the bodies of his own image, man, stimulated by sentiments of religion, respect, or of love, mutilates in vain their inanimate spoils; in vain he penetrates with aromatics and preservative juices, remains, which putrefaction reclaims and seizes. Nature covers with a little snow the traveller who scales the mountain, then, after centuries, returns the body unaltered. She commands the winds to blow: the sands of the desert are agitated, and the soldiers of Cambyses, and the soldiers of Alexander, are dried in the dust; penetrating with some unknown bodies the entrails of the earth, she there preserves the generations which have preceded us.
Here is the art of embalming in its highest degree of perfection; here are mummies which we ought to desire to imitate. It must be acknowledged, that when the Egyptians and the Guanches transmitted to us their bodies in a state of preservation, which has been the admiration and astonishment of ages, they owed as much, at least, to the aid of nature, as to the perfection of their art, and the development of their industry. If, then, we wish to preserve the bodies of those who excited our admiration or our love, in place of despising the mummies4 which nature presents us with, let us study them, let us seek with care, the cause of their preservation, and, by reasonable analyses, let us endeavour to penetrate the secret of her ways.
If this direction had been followed, convenient processes would doubtless have been discovered a long time ago; and it never would have been supposed possible to preserve a corpse with certainty, by stuffing it with sixty or eighty kinds of powdered aromatics. After such considerations, we, who have substituted an experimental for an empyrical method, and progressed from the known to the unknown, ought, to be consistent, to study natural mummies first.
Some have been formed by the general qualities of the air and earth, others, by purely local influences; in the first series, we include the mummy of the sand, and those of avalanches; in the second, those discovered here and there in certain sepultures; in the convent of the Capuchins, near Palermo; in the caves of St. Michel, at Bordeaux; in the cemetery of the church of Saint Nicholas; the Museum; the cloister of the Carmes; the caves of the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, at Toulouse, &c.
These last named mummies, the preservation of which is probably due to the particular properties of the soil in which they were deposited, have been, up to the present day, objects of vulgar curiosity, rather than of attentive examination.
Drs. Boucherie, Bermont, and Gaubert, have favoured me with some notes taken during a visit to the caves of St. Michel, at Bordeaux, (August, 1837.) I let them speak for themselves:
“The bodies exposed to view at Bordeaux, in the cavern situated beneath the tower of Saint Michel, were deposited there in 1793, nearly in the same state in which they appear at present, they came from the sepulchres of the church and the adjoining cemetery. A great number of bones, and the wreck of soft parts, dried and preserved like the whole bodies, form a layer of seventeen or eighteen feet, upon which are supported the inferior extremities of seventy subjects, arranged in a circle around the wall, and retained in a vertical position by the cords which bind them. Some of these, they say, had remained in the earth many centuries, others from sixty to eighty years or more.
“During our visit, 25th August, 1837, we determined to examine with care the state of these bodies, those of the middle, where they had remained for more than forty years, and above all, we procured strips of skin and muscle, in order to examine them at leisure, and to submit them to some chemical re-agent, which might reveal to us the presence of the preservative element. We could not hope to collect any of the earth that had originally covered them, since they were superposed on remnants thrown into this place at the time they were enclosed here.
“After having furnished ourselves with a thermometer at 24° R., and a hygrometer at 34°, both in the open air, we descended thirty or forty steps, which conducted us to the cave. The coolness did not appear to us very striking, as it commonly is at this depth during the heat of the dog-star. Placing our instruments on the soil, we proceeded to examine the bodies.
“It is an extraordinary aspect, by lamp-light, offered by this circular space, the walls of which are tapistried by dead bodies all standing erect; the eye wanders from one to the other involuntarily, and we view the whole before confining ourselves to details. Although the most of them are in the attitude of the buried dead, some differences in size, in the position and expression of the physiognomy, produce a strange and confused impression. There is one point, however, where our regards were particularly attracted, where the heart is chilled and troubled with deep emotion—here is beheld a miserable creature in a position violently contracted—the mouth open and horribly contracted, the inferior members strongly drawn to the body—the arms, one twisted by convulsions is thrown over the head, the other folded beneath the trunk, and fixed to the thigh by the nails, which are deeply implanted in the flesh; the forced inflexion of the whole body, gives the expression of ineffable pain, all announcing a violent death. Unfortunate wretch! had he died in this state, or rather, had he been buried alive, and assumed this position in the horrible agonies of awakening?
“The skin of all these mummies, of a more or less deep gray colour, dried and rather soft to the touch, gives the sensation of parchment slightly stretched upon the organs, dried, and of the consistence of amadou[F] or spunk; the articulations are stiff and inflexible; the chest, the abdomen, and the cranium, examined carefully, did not show any incision, any regular opening indicative of any trace of embalming, even the most imperfect. The different features of the face, still distinct among some of them, displayed a variety of physiognomy; two or three of them displayed the hair of the beard very well preserved, the teeth were healthy and covered with brilliant enamel. The upper and lower extremities entirely dried, and whole in many of the subjects, are provided with all the phalanges; the last, however, divested of its nail. On the body of the tallest figure is perceived enormous purses, with evident traces of a double scrotal hernia. The skin raised and viewed on its interior surface, is tanned like the exterior; all traces of cellular tissue has disappeared; the muscles, separated from the skin, have the colour and consistence, and almost the internal structure of amadou. On introducing the hand into the chest, some rudiment of lung was found, a net work very similar to that of leaves deprived of their fleshy part; they might be taken for a mass of leaves dissected by the caterpillars, and rendered adherent by the threads and viscous fluid that these insects deposit. The intestines, also dried, are nearly in the same state.
“Such are the principal details which presented themselves in the course of our examination: at first sight, it appeared astonishing that these bodies, removed for more than forty years from the medium in which they were desiccated, should have experienced no sensible alteration in a cavern situated deeply under the earth, and surmounted by a structure like that of the tower of St. Michel. Let us return to our instruments, perhaps they will aid us in the explanation of the fact. After remaining an hour in this atmosphere, the thermometer passed from 24° to 18°, and the hygrometer, from 34° to 42°, which gives a difference for the first, of 6°, for the second of 8°, a very trifling difference, when compared to that of caves and other places in the same apparent position. This thermometrical and hygrometrical state of the air, always invariable, is, without doubt, one of the principal circumstances in maintaining the integrity of these mummies. To what cause, further, can be attributed this double state of the air in the cavern? A slow fermentation, movements of latent decomposition in the enormous mass of animal remains which form the bottom of this receptacle, are they not the probable cause? We think so, and we leave with confidence this idea, to the meditation of philosophers. Our end was attained, we had proved facts, and collected some parcels of the remains to subject them to analysis; after different trials without result, some portions of skin and muscular tissue, placed in weakened hydrochloric acid, and treated by ebullition, were totally dissolved in this liquid, to which they communicated a deep brown colour. This liquor filtered and treated by the yellow cyanate of potash, yielded a very abundant blue precipitate; and the presence of iron was thus indicated, from whence we thought that the preservation of these bodies was owing to the presence of a compound of iron in the earth, where they had been deposited. But the human blood yields iron also; was it a portion of this element of our tissues that our experiments brought into play? A suit of comparative experiments upon the tissues of mummies, on the one hand, and of the same tissues dried in the sun of subjects recently dead, on the other hand, have evidently proved the excess of iron in the first. Analogous circumstances doubtless, have determined the preservation of the bodies found at Toulouse, at Palermo, &c. We regret not to be able to transmit the suit of experiments made by our learned friend, Dr. Boucherie; these will form the subject of ulterior researches.”
The same phenomenon still occurs in different parts of our country, under a moderate temperature: thus, about 1660, M. de La Visèe and his domestic, having been assassinated at Paris, and interred on the place where the crime was committed, their bodies were discovered after the lapse of a year, whole and readily recognisable; a cloak even, lined with plush, had not suffered the least alteration.
The mummy of the avalanches, and all those, the preservation of which is due to a constant low temperature, retain the freshness and plumpness of the tissues for years and for centuries, if the conditions of the medium remain the same; but, under these circumstances, the action of cold exerts no other influence than the suspension of decomposition; for the moment it ceases, the tissues are rapidly exposed to the laws of inorganic chemistry.
In those cases, however, where the bodies exposed to cold are subjected to a dry and lively wind, a real mummification may occur, as in the following example:
There is upon the summit of the Great Saint Bernard, a sort of morgue (dead house) in which have been deposited, from time immemorial, the bodies of those unfortunate persons who have perished upon this mountain by cold, or the fall of avalanches.
The study of the circumstances of locality, and of temperature, in which this establishment is placed, may, to a certain degree, indicate the most favourable conditions for the long preservation of bodies. Here they show to travellers, bodies, which they assert have been sufficiently well preserved to be recognisable after the lapse of two or three years. A physician, whose quality as ancient prosector of the faculty of Medicine of Paris, rendered him curious to visit this part of the hospital in all its details, has verified with his own eyes all that travellers have written, and has transmitted to us the following observation:
The hospital of Saint Bernard, is, as is well known, the most elevated habitation in Europe, being 7,200 feet above the level of the sea. The temperature of this part of the globe is always very low, rarely above zero, even during summer. This extensive establishment is built upon the borders of a little lake, at the bottom of a little gorge; the principal mass of the building represents a long parallelogram placed in the direction of the gorge, so that its two principal faces, pierced with numerous windows, are sheltered from the wind by the rocks; whilst the two extremities, on the contrary, are exposed to all the violence of those which blow from one side of the gorge to the other. About fifty steps beyond this principal building, and a little out of a right line with it, is situated the morgue, a sort of square chamber, the walls of which, three or four feet thick, are constructed of good stone, and the arched roof of which is very solid. Two windows of about four feet square, are pierced in the direction of the breadth of the valley, directly facing each other, so that a perpetual current of cool air traverses the interior of the chamber. There is, further, but a single table in this morgue, upon which they place the bodies when first introduced; after a while they are arranged around the walls in an upright attitude. At the time of my passage of the Great Saint Bernard, (31st August, 1837,) there were several of these mummified bodies along the walls of the chamber, but a greater number were entirely divested of flesh, and lie scattered about the earthy floor of the room. They informed me, that decomposition only took place when the bodies fell by accident to the ground; which was owing to the humidity occasioned by the snow, which occasionally entered with the currents of air through the windows of the morgue.[G] (Note communicated by Dr. Lenoir.)
The existence of the mummies of the sands, is attested by numerous travellers, and all the authors who have written on embalming mention them. They are every where found, where an arid and burning atmosphere deeply penetrates the masses of fine sand, easily agitated by the winds. In Egypt, for example, Herodotus frequently speaks of these bodies dried by the sun. Cambyses, on the authority of this author, suffered horrible effects from these sands, driven before the wind; he lost almost his whole army during his expedition to the temple of Jupiter Ammon.
Pere Kircher gives us an interesting description of these sand storms: “In the countries of Africa situated beyond the Nile, is a vast desert of sand, the immense waves of which appear in the boundless horizon like those of the sea. Agitated by the winds, these sands produce such frightful tempests, that they swallow up under their enormous masses, travellers, beasts of burden, and merchandise. Bodies thus engulfed, become desiccated after a series of years, both by the ardour of the sun’s rays, and by virtue of the burning sand: this is the reason that some have asserted that mummies might be formed by natural causes only, &c.”[H] Penicher, Clauderus, De Maillet, Rouelle Le Comte de Caylus, cite examples of the same nature. A whole caravan, or some travellers, disappear under a mass of sand; years, centuries, pass by, then a new revolution in the disposition of these masses restores to the light of day, those bodies which a previous revolution had engulfed; blackened, dried, and lightened by the loss of all their fluids. In Mexico, Mr. Humboldt met with true mummies. Travellers have visited battlefields, situated on a soil deprived of rain, and in a burning atmosphere. They saw with astonishment, that these fields were covered with the dead bodies of Spaniards and Peruvians, dried and preserved for a long time. At the side of these phenomena which nature offers us, come the mummies of which Maillet speaks in his letters on Egypt.
“There has been discovered,” says he, “recently, in this plain of mummies, a mode of burying hitherto unknown. At the extremity of this vast open country, and towards the mountains, which bound it on the west, have been discovered beds of carbon, on which are laid bodies clothed only with some linen, and covered with a mat, upon which rests the sands seven or eight feet in thickness. Nevertheless, it is to be observed, that these bodies, although they were not embalmed, or at least but slightly so, the same as those that they have neglected to enclose in cases, were none the less beyond the reach of corruption.”
I promised to demonstrate the simple connection which exists between the products of nature, and those of human industry, to show that the first were the origin of the second. The facts which I have just exposed, I think, place this proposition beyond a doubt.
The preservation of bodies among the Guanches, which is already a step advanced in the art, will form the subject of the following chapter.
CHAPTER III.
EMBALMING OF THE GUANCHES.
The Guanches, with the Egyptians, are the only nation among whom embalming had become national, and there exists in the process and mode of preservation of both such striking analogy, that the study of the Guanch mummies is, probably, the surest means of arriving at some positive notions of their origin and relationship. To make ourselves understood in the subject which now occupies us, we ought to remark, that the details known of the mode of embalming among the Guanches, will enlighten and complete the descriptions that ancient authors have transmitted to us of the Egyptian processes: it is thus that it appears to us without a doubt, that their silence on desiccation in the act of mummification, is a simple omission on their part: that this desiccation was continued during the seventy days of preparation; that it constituted the principal part of the processes adopted; and that, because among the Guanches desiccation was placed in the first rank, if we are to credit the relations of authors. We see in this, one of the finest examples of the utility of the comparative study of the manners and usages of different nations: light is thrown on both by the comparison of facts.
The pains taken by the Guanches to evaporate the fluid parts of their dead bodies, is the cause which determines us to place their mummies immediately after those of the deserts of Lybia; because their processes approach nearest to that of nature. The details which we are about to give, are extracted from the excellent work of M. Bory de Saint Vincent on the Fortunate Isles.
“The arts of the Guanches were not numerous, the most singular without doubt is that of embalming.
“The Guanches preserved the remains of their relations in a scrupulous manner, and spared no pains to guarantee them from corruption. As a moral duty, each individual prepared for himself the skins of goats, in which his remains could be enveloped, and which might serve him for sepulture. These skins were often divested of their hair, at other times they permitted it to remain, when they placed indifferently the hairy side within or without. The processes to which they resorted to make perfect mummies, which they named xaxos, are nearly lost. Some writers have, nevertheless, left details on this subject, but perhaps they are not more exact than those which Herodotus has transmitted to us upon the embalming of the Egyptians.
“With the Guanches, the embalmers were abject beings; men and women filled this employment respectively, for their sexes; they were well paid, but their touch was considered contamination; and all who were occupied in preparing the xaxos lived retired, solitary, and out of sight. It is, then, out of place, that Sprats has advanced the idea, that embalming was confined to a tribe of priests, who made a sacred mystery of it, and that the secret died with the priests. There were several kinds of embalming, and several different employments for those who had charge of it. When they had need of the services of the embalmers, they carried the body to them to be preserved, and immediately retired. If the body belonged to persons capable of bearing the expenses, they extended it at first on a stone table; an operator then made an opening in the lower part of the belly with a sharpened flint, wrought into the form of a knife and called tabona; the intestines were withdrawn, which other operators afterwards washed and cleaned; they also washed the rest of the body, and particularly the delicate parts, as the eyes, interior of the mouth, the ears, and the nails, with fresh water saturated with salt. They filled the large cavities with aromatic plants; they then exposed the body to the hottest sun, or placed it in stoves, if the sun was not hot enough. During the exposition, they frequently endued the body with an ointment, composed of goats’ grease, powder of odoriferous plants, pine bark, resin, tar, ponce stone, and other absorbing materials. Feuille thinks that these unctions were also made with a composition of butter, and desiccative and balsamic substances, among which are mentioned the resin of larch, and the leaves of pomegranate, which never possessed the property of preserving bodies.
“On the fifteenth day the embalming should be completely terminated; the mummy should be dry and light; the relatives send for it and establish the most magnificent obsequies in their power. They sew up the body in several folds of the skin, which they had prepared when living, and they bind it with straps, retained by running knots. The kings and the grandees were besides, placed in a case or coffin of a single piece, and hollowed out of the trunk of the juniper tree, the wood of which was held as incorruptible. They then finally, carried the xaxos, thus sown and encased, to inaccessible grottoes consecrated to this purpose.
“Another less expensive mode of preserving the dead, consisted in drying them in the sun, after having introduced into the belly a corrosive liquor: this liquor eats into the interior parts, where the sun does not act sufficiently to prevent their corruption. Like the other xaxos, the relatives sowed them in skins and carried them to the grottoes.
“These mummies, such as they are found at the present day, are dry and light; many have perfectly preserved their hair and beard, the nails are often wanting; the features of the face are distinct, but shrunken; the abdomen is contracted. In some, there exists no mark of incision, in others are observed the trace of a rather large opening on the flank. The xaxos are of a tanned colour, with generally an agreeable odour; exposed to the air, out of the sacks of goat skin, which are admirably preserved, they fall by degrees into dust; they are punctured in many places; surrounded by the chrysalides of flies, proceeding probably from maggots, deposited upon the body during its preparation: these larvæ and chrysalides, which could not be reproduced, are preserved whole and healthy like the mummies.
“The Chevalier Scory says, that these mummies are two thousand years old: it is difficult to determine how long they have been preserved; but we shall see in the sequel that it has been certainly more than two thousand years since the Guanches embalmed. I willingly believe that, in the corrosive composition which they employed in the second kind of embalming, and probably in all cases, the Guanches made use of the juice of the spurge; they doubtless employed the species proper to their climate, which is acrid and milky; I have recognised whole pieces in the chest of a mummy, in which, nevertheless, there existed no traces of an incision. Leaves, also, it is said, have been taken from the body in a good state of preservation, and have been recognised as those of the laurel. During the exposure of the body to the sun, they extend the arms of the men along the side of the trunk, and for the most part crossing those of the women before the lower part of the abdomen. From time to time new catacombs are discovered in the Canary islands. In 1758, they found one at Palma; but the mummies were either very old, or badly embalmed, they soon fell into powder. At Fer, there was found on the tables where the xaxos had laid, the furniture which the deceased had used during life. In this island they wall up these caverns, to prevent them being used as retreats for birds of prey and for crows.
“At the Canaries, they do not limit themselves always to placing the mummies in grottoes; they elevated special tombs to certain distinguished dead. These privileged dead, dressed in their garment, called tamareo, were placed upon elevated planks of pine wood, with the head turned towards the north; they afterwards constructed above, a monument of hard stone, pyramidal in form, and often very high. Many catacombs are known to exist in Teneriffe; the most celebrated is that of Baranco de Herque, between Arico and Guimar, in the Abona country: it was discovered during the time that Clarijo wrote his Noticias. He states that they there met with more than a thousand mummies, whilst in other cases only three or four hundred had been found at a time. From hence they brought the xaxos, which are in the cabinet of the King of Spain, and the two which M. de Chastenet-Puysegur sent in 1776, to the Garden of Plants: one of them unfortunately wants the feet.”
We abstain from all reflection on the recital which precedes. Their analogy to the Egyptian process will occur of itself to the mind of the reader, in the description which follows. Nevertheless, we ought to indicate a fact observed of two Guanch mummies; a fact omitted in the preceding description.
M. Jouannet, a modest and laborious investigator, has proved, that two Guanch mummies that were in his possession, had the eyes, nose, and mouth, filled with bitumen, like some of the Egyptian mummies. The skins which enveloped them were carefully closed, and nothing indicated that the bitumen was an addition posterior to 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.[I] 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.
We have not hesitated to include in this work the preceding observations, because they appeared to us necessary to rectify or complete the facts advanced by Herodotus, Diodorus Sicculus, Plutarch, Porphyrus, and many others. But the whole of these materials have need of new lights, drawn from researches made upon the spot. The scientific commission of Egypt felt the necessity of this, and several of its members applied themselves to personal examinations of the pyramids and caverns; and one of them, M. Rouyer, in his memoir on Egyptian embalming, traces us a history nearly complete. The following are the most interesting details:
The art of embalming is totally unknown at the present day in those places which gave it birth, and it has remained buried in profound forgetfulness, since Egypt, which, long the home of the sciences and the arts, has been overrun and successively ravaged by barbarian nations, who have destroyed all its institutions, political and religious.
“The historians, to whom we are indebted for all we know at the present time of the ancient wonders of Egypt, and who have written during the period when the Egyptians still possessed some of their customs, could alone transmit to us the ingenious secret of embalming; but their recitals prove, that they themselves possessed but an imperfect knowledge of it.”
All the ancient authors agree, in saying that the Egyptians made use of various aromatics to embalm the dead; that they employed for the rich, myrrh, (the resin of a species of Mimosa,) aloes, (the extracto-resinous juice of the Aloe perfoliata,) canella, (bark of the Laurus cinamomum,) and the cassia lignea, (bark of the Laurus cassia;) and for the poor, the cedria, (the fluid resin of the Pinus cedrus,) bitumen, (Bitumen judaicum, derived from the Dead sea,) and natrum, (a mixture of the carbonate, sulphate, and muriate of soda.)
“Although the recitals of Herodotus, and of Diodorus Sicculus, on embalming, are not very complete, and that some details appear inexact and improbable, as several of the French investigators have observed, however, on placing in convenient order what Herodotus relates on this subject, we shall soon perceive that he has described in a few lines almost the whole theory of embalming. The Egyptian embalmers knew how to distinguish from the other viscera, the liver, the spleen, and the kidneys, which they did not disturb; they had discovered the means of withdrawing the brain from the interior of the cranium without destroying the bones of the latter; they knew the action of the alkalies upon animal matter, since the time was strictly limited that the body could remain in contact with these substances; they were not ignorant of the property of balsams, and resins to protect the bodies from the larvæ of insects and mites; they were likewise aware of the necessity of enveloping the dried and embalmed bodies, in order to protect them from humidity, which would interfere with their preservation. These people had established invariable rules and a certain method for the process of embalming. We remark, in effect, that the labour of those who were charged with embalming the dead, consisted in two principal operations, very distinct: the first, to subtract from the interior of the corpse all that might become a cause of corruption during the time allotted to dry it; the second, to secure the body from any cause that might subsequently occasion its destruction.
“The odoriferous resins and bitumen not only preserved from destruction, but also kept at a distance, the worms and beetles which devour dead bodies. The embalmers, after having washed the bodies with that vineous liquor which Herodotus and Diodorus call palm wine, and having filled them with odoriferous resins or bitumen, they placed them in stoves, where, by means of a convenient heat, these resinous substances united intimately with the bodies, and these arrive in very little time, to that state of perfect desiccation in which we find them at the present day. This operation, of which no historian has spoken, was, without doubt, the principal and most important of embalming.
“The most noted grottoes and pyramids have been sacked by the Arabs. Also, in search of treasure, they have penetrated into the bosom of mountains, and descended into those vast and deep excavations, where they arrive only by long canals, with which some are encumbered. Here, in chambers, or species of pits, worked into the rock, are found millions of mummies, piled upon each other, which appear to have been arranged with a certain symmetry, although many are now found displaced and broken.
“Near these deep pits, which served for a common sepulture for several families, we meet also with other smaller chambers, and some narrow cavities in form of niches, which were destined to hold one mummy only, or at most two. The grottoes of Thebes enclose a great number of mummies, better preserved than those in the caverns and pits of Saggârah. It is particularly, near the ruins of Thebes, in the interior of the mountains which extend from the entrance of the valley of the Tomb of Kings, to Medynet Abou, that I have seen many entire and well preserved mummies.
“It would be impossible for me to estimate the prodigious number of those which I have found scattered and heaped in the sepulchral chambers, and in the multitude of caverns which exist in the interior of this mountain. I have developed and examined a great number of them, as much with the view of inquiring into their state, and examining the preparation, as with the hope of finding idols, papyrus, and other curious objects, that the most part of these mummies enclose beneath their envelopes. I have not remarked, what Maillet asserts, caverns specially destined to the sepulture of men, of women, and of infants; but I was surprised to find so few infant mummies in the tombs which I visited. These embalmed bodies, among which we meet with nearly an equal number of men and women, and which at first view appear to resemble each other, and to have been prepared in the same manner, differ, nevertheless, in the various substances which have been employed to embalm them, or in the arrangement and in the quality of the linen employed to envelope them.”
The Count de Caylus, and the celebrated chemist, Rouelle, have supposed that all the cloths that enveloped the mummies were of cotton; I have found a great number of them which were enveloped in linen bandages, of a much finer tissue than those of cotton, which are commonly found around mummies prepared with less care. The mummies of birds, particularly those of the Ibis, are also enveloped with linen bandages.
“On examining with attention and in detail some of the mummies found in the tombs, I have distinguished two principal classes: those in which they have made, on the left side above the groin, an incision about two and a half inches long, penetrating into the lower cavity of the belly; and those which have no incision whatever in any part of the body. In both classes, we find many mummies with the partition of the nose torn, and the ethmoidal bone entirely destroyed; but some of the last class have the spongy bones untouched, and the ethmoidal bone entire, which might make it appear that, sometimes the embalmers did not disturb the brain. The opening found in the side of most mummies, was doubtless made in all cases of select embalming, not only for the purpose of withdrawing the intestines, which are not found in any of these desiccated bodies, but also the better to clean the cavity of the belly, and to fill it with a greater quantity of aromatic and resinous substances, the volume of which contributed to preserve the body, at the same time that the strong odour of the resins kept off the insects and worms. This opening does not appear to me to have been sewn up, as Herodotus asserts; the borders have only been brought together, and are retained so by desiccation.
“1. Among the mummies with an incision in the left side, I distinguish those which have been desiccated by means of tanno-balsamic substances, and those that have been salted. The mummies that have been dried by means of astringent and balsamic substances, are filled as with a mixture of aromatic resins, and the others with asphaltum or pure bitumen.