Ancient Egypt

The story of
mummification
Ancient Egyptian mummification developed over
time.

The first burials in the hot desert sands

led to natural mummification of the
whole body.

Later, placing the body in a

coffin meant that only the
skeleton survived.

Then the Egyptians learned how to

artificially mummify the body before
putting it in the coffin.
 Early mummification was a natural process.
The desert sand was hot and dry. Bodies placed in the hot sand
dehydrated because the hot sand
absorbed the water in the body.

Dehydration preserved the whole body.

 The result is a natural sand-dried mummy.

preserved skin burial in sand grave goods

 But bodies buried in the desert sands were at risk
from wild animals.

If animals attacked the bodies they would not be preserved and would
not reach the afterlife intact.
 So the Egyptians started to place the body
in a coffin.

This is a skeleton (not a mummy).

The soft tissue has rotted away.

The whole body needed to be

preserved for the afterlife.

The hot dry sand could not

reach the body to dry it out
..so the soft tissue rotted
away.
 Artificial mummification
The ancient Egyptians realised they needed to mummify the dead
bodies artificially before they placed them in the coffin.

they artificially dehydrated the body and

the internal organs
they wrapped the body in linen
bandages and placed it in a coffin
the put the organs in canopic jars
and put the coffin, canopic jars and
grave goods into the tomb.
This process was very expensive so over
95% of the population were buried in the
sand and ended up like the first natural
sand-dried mummy.
Find out more about ancient Egyptian mummies
Visit the British Museum website
www.britishmuseum.org

Use Explore to look at some of their mummies

www.britishmuseum.org/explore/introduction.aspx