Nations of antiquity attempted to preserve the human form after death, but they can scarcely be considered mummies. The Persians used wax (Herod., i. 140 ; Cicero, Tuse.,' i. 45) ; the Assyrians honey (Strabo, xvi.), and the Jews embalmed their kings Asa and Zedekiah with spices (2 Chron., xvi. 14; Jerem., xxxiv. 5). The body of our Lord was anointed with spices (John, xix. 39, 40). Aristobulus was preserved in honey (Joseph., xiv., c. 7); and Alexander the Great was embalmed with wax and honey (Statius Silv., iii ;2, 117). The Romalis occasionally—as in the case of Popp= (Tacit.,' An.,' xvi. 6)—embalmed the body, and bodies so prepared have been found near the Appian Way and at Albano. Certain bodies have been found dried by the effects of natural situations, as the corpses of the Spaniards and Mexicans fallen in fights (Humboldt, Ansieht der Natur.,' 12mo, Tub. 1808, p. 509); those frozen by cold in the morgue of the convent at St. Gothard (Gannal, Hist. d'Embaum.,' p. 53); others discovered in 1785 in the church of the Innocents at Toulouse (Puymaurin, Acad. de Toul.,' 1787 ; Magnus, 'Das Einbals.' p. 15) ; at Bourdeaux ; in the cloisters of the Capuchins at Palermo (Smyth, Sicily,' p. 88); those in the vaults of St. 3liehan's Church at Dublin ; that of Aurora, Countess of Kfinigsmark, at Quedlinburg, others at Haliar, and at Strasburg, &e. Embalmed bodies of monarchs of the middle ages and of the last centuries have been occasionally found.
The only people who adopted a mode of preserving the body like the Egyptians are the Guanches, the ancient inhabitants of the Canary Isles. These bodies, called xaxos, had the viscera removed through a flank incision made by a stone called tabona. The belly was then filled with absorbent vegetable powder and salt ; a salve of goats'-fat, the rind of figs, pitch, pumice, and a kind of euphorbium, and the Chenopodium ambrosioides were used in the preparation, which was con tinued for 14 days (Rory St-Vincent, `Essai sur les Isles Fortunes,' 4to, Paris, 1807, ii., p. 56 ; Magnus, das Einbals.' p. 71), the body being dried in the sun or by a stove. When thus prepared, the mummies, adjusted in a squatting position, were sewn up in sheep or goat skins; those of the poorer classes being joined together in one envelope, while those of the richer were placed in their dress tamarco in cases hollowed out of ravine wood, and placed under a kind of pyramid. The bodies are not bandaged, but are excessively light, being
quite dried and tanned, with a slight aromatic smell ; the features are distorted, and not well preserved. Numerous catacombs are found filled with them, and as many as 1000 were discovered at Teneriffe. (Ilumboldt and Bonpland, Heise,' 12mo, Wien., 1825, i., 225.) On the American continent, probably owing to the greater dryness of the air, preserved bodies have been found, as at Durango, Bogata, and those of the Coroados Indians on the Paraiba River, in the Brazils, the bodies of whose chiefs, deposited with their ornaments and favourite animals, in a couching posture, in large covered jars, are long preserved. (Debret, Voy. au Brasil,' 1. 19.) Several dried bodies of the ancient Peruvians, wrapped up in coloured cotton bandages, have been found at Arica and other places in Peru ; but their preservation is duo to the lightness of the soil and the air, and not to any artificial process. In the South Sea, at Nukahiwa, bodies have been temporarily preserved for a few months in cocoa-nut oil (Langsdorf, Reise um die Welt,' i. 208); and the Birmese know how to keep the body for a short time by means of pitch dhamma; but such processes scarcely render the body a mummy. It is not necessary here to detail the modern processes employed for the preservation of the body for museums of anatomy and natural history, as such embalmed bodies are in no sense mummies, and the European climates are too unfavourable to permit their pre servation except under circumstances of peculiar care. The subject of mummies has been treated by many authors since the commencement of the 16th century. The principal works treating of the subject in general are—Pettigrew, History of Mummies,' 4to, Lend., 1834; Gannal, Traits d'Embaumement,' 8vo, Paris, 1838; Philadelphia, 1840 ; Magnus, Einbalsamiren der Leichen,' 8vo, Braunsch., 1839.