I want my Mummy!

Words that are Unknown to Me

Cryonics- is the freezing of the body just after they died, this is done to prevent the decomposing of the body.

Cadavers- is a dead body used as a research for science.

Transgressions- The violation of a law or moral principal.

What is a Mummy?

A mummy is an ancient cadaver whose soft tissue has partially or wholly resisted decay. 

In what parts of the world have mummies have been found?

Mummies have been found all over the world, the oldest mummy dates back to 7,000 years ago. The mummy was found in Northern Chile, called a Chinchorro. Many have also been found in Egypt, Asia and Europe.
 2. In what types of places (physical geography and climate) have mummies been found?
Some have been preserved in the frozen climate. An example of this is Ozi, the mummy that we learned about in the beginning of the year. He was preserved in the ice. In England and nothern Europe, many thousands of mummies have been found in bogs, which are mossy muddy lakes. Also in Egypt, mummies have been found in the sand, all dried up from the dense heat. 

3. How did Ancient Egyptians preserve their dead?
The process of the mummification was a very long process, if I remember correctly it took the 40 days to mummify a person. The ancient Egyptians took out the vital organs first and put them into specific jars, then they soaked the body in various liquids, finally wrapping the body in several different linens.   

4. Why do you think ancient Egyptians took such care to embalm their dead if the desert could do the job for them? 
The Egyptians believed in afterlife. Many times they would draw/write what they wanted on the walls of their tomb to represent what they were going to get in their afterlife. The reason why many of the Egyptian tombs were robbed was because the ancient Egyptians placed not only food in the tombs but also different symbolic objects that they would like in their after life. 

This is an image of Egyptian afterlife

5. What features of the natural environment can cause bodies to be mummified unintentionally?
The cold mummified the bodies by freezing the organs and skin, the cold preserved the different parts of the body that would decayed in in a normal climate. In Egypt the heat and dryness of the sand preserve the bodies by drying all the things in the body that would have decayed otherwise. The Bog mummies are bodies that are naturally preserved by the wet and muddy bogs in places like England, Ireland and Florida. The bog is a great way to preserve bodies because it is so natural that it preserves the brain. Which is a great help to archaeologists and scientists. 

6. According to current scientific beliefs, what are some reasons people were intentionally mummified?
Many of the mummies were used as a sacrifice to the gods. Many mummies around the world were found to have characteristics that showed that mummies were sacrificed to the gods. Other times the ancient people wanted to preserve the bodies because they believed in after life. Or other times archaeologists think that the bodies were killed and then mummified because of they violated a law or a moral principal- an act of transgression.


List at least five questions that you would ask about a place to determine whether it might be a promising location to find human mummies. You r questions should related to climate, culture, religion and other factors that you think are important. 

1. What is the climate like in the area? Does the area have a cold, dry or wet climate? 
2. What are the different types of tribes that used to live in this area?
3. If there were different tribes, did they have a specific religion?
4. Have there been other findings of mummies in this area?
5. Does the ancient tribe or civilization have any very specific traditions?