Egyptian evisceration
A systematic analysis of ancient Egyptian mummy evisceration has found that historical descriptions of the techniques may have been off-base
Trade secret
In ancient Egypt, embalmers had guild-like organizations and their tricks of the trade were closely guarded secrets.
Father of history
But in the fifth century B.C., ancient Greek historian Herodotus managed to get an inside peek at the industry and described the techniques used to eviscerate the dead.
Organ removal
In his histories, he says that the highest classes were the only ones eviscerated with a trans-abdominal slit, and that the brain was always removed. Other accounts suggested the heart was always removed.
Cedar oil enema?
The lower classes, he said, received a cedar oil enema to eat away their internal organs.
Thorough analysis
But researchers Andrew Wade and Andrew Nelson wanted to see whether Herodotus accounts matched practices we actually see in mummies. They analyzed mummies described in the literature, and performed CT scanning on several others. Here, a Theban male mummy from the Redpath museum gets scanned.
Varied techniques
They found that contrary to Herodotus' accounts, the upper and lower classes alike tended to get the trans-abdominal slit, with a cut through the anus restricted to elites.
Mummy skeleton
Mummies didn't show evidence of cedar oil enemas. In addition, the mummies didn't always have their hearts left in place and their brains removed. Here, a 3D reconstruction of a mummy, with an oval indicating the incision site.
