EMBALMING (from Gk. 11142cayor, balsa mom balm). The art of preserving bodies after death. The art was carried to great per fection by the ancient. Egyptians, who regarded the preservation of the dead as a religious duty. Not only human beings, but also eats, ibises, ichneumons, and other sacred animals were r•gu larly embalmed. ln ISSO the nnnwnmv of King Aler-en n', who lived about twenty-five centuries before our era, was found in his pyramid at Sal: karat', and its excellent state of preservation at tests the efficacy of the methods of embalming used that remote period. From time to time, various improvements in the art seem to have been intro duced. and under the New Empire the processes employed were highly elaborate. At the same tinie, certain innovations appeared; the heart was removed and replaced by a atone scarabams, and the viscera were placed in four jars. each of which was under the protection of one of the four sons of (kirk. (See CANo•c VASES.) Both Ilerodotns and r)iodorns describe the methods of embalming practiced. in their day, by the Egyp tians, According In Ilerodotlis (e.I50 B.c.), three InethnIN Were ill The expensive these was as billows: The brain was l'effleVed lamigh the Host cll.. part ly by the use of a curved metal Mal flIttlent and partly by the injec t ion of certain firm's. The intestines were with through lin in the left Hank, and the mlidominal e:r1i1y. after being washed out v. kb paler mine. eras filled with myrrh, and other aromatic sub lance.. The opening was then sewed Ill/ 711111 the body was .,leoped for 70 days in a strong solution of natron, which seems to have been a mixture of common salt, saltpetre, and sodium sulphate. After this the body was washed. elaborately bandaged in linen strips smeared with resins, and was finally placed in the coffin. This method of embalming was within the reach of the wealthy only. A second and cheaper method consisted in injecting into the abdominal cavity 'cedar oil' ( KE6pla, kc ). or turpentine, and steeping the body for 70 days in a solution of caustic soda. The contents of
the abdomen, broken down by the injection, were then allowed to escape, and the body was ready for burial. By the third method the abdomen was washed out with syrnura, and the body was pickled in caustic soda for 70 days. Diodorus also speaks (toward the close of the first cen tury B.C.) of three modes of embalming practiced by the Egyptians. The first method cost, he says, a silver talent (about $1200), the second 20 minas (about $400), while the third cost but 'a trifle.' His account agrees in the main with that of Herodotus, though he gives some additional details. According to Diodorus, a scribe first drew with a reed pen a line down the left flank of the body, and, following this line, the parasehistes or 'cutter' made a deep inci sion. The embalmers then withdrew the entrails through this incision and proceeded to embalm the body. From an examination in modern times of many Egyptian mummies, it is evident that the methods described by the classical writers were not the only ones employed. Some mummies have been merely dried in the sand; others have been treated with caustic soda or boiled in resins and bitumen, with or without the flank incision, having the brain removed through the eyes or base of the cranium, with the viscera returned into the body, placed upon it, or deposited in jars in shapes of the genii of the dead. the skin partially gilded, the flank incision covered with a tin plate, the fingers eased in silver, the eyes removed and replaced. The mummies arc gen erally wrapped in linen bandages and placed in costly coffins. Embalming was practiced to some extent by the early Christians in Egypt, their views in regard to the resurrection being doubt less influenced by Egyptian ideas. The Guanehcs. or ancient inhabitants of the Canary Isles, used an elaborate process like that of the Egyptians: and desiccated bodies, preserved for centuries by atmospheri• or other agencies, have been found in France, Sicily, England, and America, espe cially in Central America and Peru.