EMBALMING. The ancient practice of embalming was specifically Egyptian. When Hebrew narrators say that it was applied in the case of Jacob and Joseph (Gen. 50, 2 f. 2G), they are speaking of exceptions. It was not s Hebrew practice. The Egyptians believed in the con tinued existence of the human Ka, provided that the body of the deceased was carefully preserved. Hence the practice of embalming, to which reference is made by Herodotus (II. SG ff.) and Diodorus Siculus (I. 91). Pro fessor Elliot Smith explains that " from the outset the Egyptian embalmer was clearly inspired by two ideals : (a) to preserve the actual tissues of the body with a minimum disturbance of its superficial appearance; and (b) to preserve a likeness of the deceased as he was in life " (Dr.). To attain these ideals practical measures were taken, and various ritual ceremonies were per formed (see MUMMIFICATION, INCENSE, LIBA TIONS). The essential processes of mummification were salting, evisceration, drying, and smoking. The incision for eviscerating the body was made in the flank, right or left, or in the perineum. To prevent the general epidermis, as it was shed, from carrying the finger- and toe-nails with it, the ancient Egyptian embalmers made circular incisions around fingers and toes. Herodotus distinguishes three methods of embalming. In one method, the brain was withdrawn and the cavity filled with spices; then the bowels were removed and washed with palm wine, and the cavity was filled with myrrh, cassia, and other drugs; finally, after being kept for seventy days in natron (sub-carbonate of soda), the body was washed and swarthed in long strips of byssus smeared with gum. In another method " cedar oil was introduced into the body and removed after it had decom posed the viscera; the body was then laid in natron, which, according to Herodotus, wholly consumed the flesh, leaving •nothing but the skin and bones " (Encycl.
Bibl.). At an early stage in the evolution of mummifica tion the wrapped body was converted into a portrait statue of the deceased. Thus, in a mummy found at Aledum by Flinders Petrie, " the superficial bandages were saturated with a paste of resin and soda, and the same material was applied to the surface of the wrap pings, which while still in a plastic condition, was very skilfully moulded to form a life-like statue. The resinous carapace thus built up set to form a covering of stony hardness " (Elliot Smith, M.). Elliot Smith notes that " special care was devoted to the modelling of the head (sometimes of the face only) and the genitalia, no doubt to serve ss the means of identifying the individual and indicating the sex respectively. The hair (or, per haps it would be more correct to •say, the wig) and the moustache were painted with a dark brown or black resinous mixture, and the pupils, eyelids and eyebrows were represented by painting with a mixture of malachite powder and resinous paste." It has been said that the practice of embalming was specifically Egyptian. It is in Egypt that we first hear of it, and it was there that it first developed. But it was not confined to Egypt. It has been found throughout the world. The Baganda embalm the bodies of their kings. Embalming was prac tised in the Canary Islands, in Persia by the Moslems, in Thibet, in Australia, in Tahiti, in Peru and other parts of America, and elsewhere. The methods employed often resemble so closely those used in ancient Egypt that one can hardly avoid the conclusion that Egypt was the centre from which, somehow or other, the custom spread all over the world.