October 31st: Mummies

10 facts about a horror favourite - the mummy.

1. The word Mummy comes from the Arabic word "mumiyah" meaning bitumen, because this substance was thought to be used by the Egyptians when making mummies. Turned out they didn't, they used resin instead.
2. It was because mummies were thought to contain bitumen that in the 1500s, ground up mummies were prescribed as medicine by doctors at the time, because people in the middle ages thought bitumen could cure diseases.
3. Mummies aren't just Egyptian dead people wrapped in bandages, but any body, human or animal, in which soft tissues have not decayed after death. This can happen naturally if a body is frozen or dried out.
4. The process of making an Egyptian mummy took 70 days and started with the removal of internal organs including pulling the Brain out through the nose using metal rods. The Egyptians didn't keep the brains because they believed all thoughts and emotions came from the Heart. The heart was usually left in the body. The body was then washed out with Wine and stuffed with cloth to help keep its shape. The body was then packed in a type of salt called natron for 40 days to dry it out. After that the body would be smeared in resin. Then it would be decorated in jewellery and make-up before being wrapped.
5. About 150 yards of linen would be used to wrap a mummy. More resin would be added to each layer. Sometimes jewels and charms would be slipped into the wrappings, and heiroglyphs and human faces painted on.
6. Animals were mummified as well as humans. Mummified Cats, crocodiles, bulls, Bats, shrews, Dogs, birds, beetles and fish have been found in tombs and temples.
7. The Inca people made mummies, too. They come second in the mummy making league table. They would place their bodies in decorated leather bundles or baskets. Mummies of royal people were often paraded around the streets for days, with servants washing them and changing their clothes.
8. Natural mummies are often found in caves, either buried there by others or after dying in accidents underground. They may also be found in cold climates like Greenland and frozen in ice. Mummies have also been found in peat bogs.
9. One mummy has been found in China, well preserved within a nest of tombs. The only Chinese mummy ever found was a woman who died aged about 50.
10. In 1977, the mummified body of a baby mammoth was found in Siberia.