Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/CAIRO: Authorities have said that the discovery of dozens of beakers and bowls in the mummification workshop helped reveal how the ancient Egyptiansembalmed their dead, with few “surprising.” ingredients imported from as far as Southeast Asia.
According to the AFP, the exceptional pottery collection, dating between 664 and 525 BCwas found at the bottom of almost a 13-metre well at the Saqqara Necropolis of Cairo in 2016.
Inside the vessels, researchers have detected trees resin from Asia, cedar oil from Lebanon, and bitumen from the Dead Sea, showing that international trade helped embalmers source the best ingredients from across the globe.
Ancient Egyptians developed
Ancient Egyptians developed a remarkably advanced process to embalm corpses, believing that if old bodies were kept intact, they should reach the afterlife.
The process, which took up to 17 days, involved desiccating the ancient body with natron salt and evisceration, removing the lungs, stomach, intestines, and liver. The brain came out.
Then the embalmers, accompanied by priests, washed an ancient body and used a variety of substances to prevent it from decomposing.
But exactly how this had done has largely remained lost to time.
Now a group of researchers from Germany’s Tuebingen and Munich universities, in collaboration with National Research Centre in Egypt, has found some answers by analyzing the residue in thirty-one ceramic vessels found at the Saqqara mummification workshop.
