People have long been fascinated by mummies, the preserved bodies from ancient Egypt. They certainly have one large advantage over most other monsters: They’re real!
You can walk right into a museum and see one. Of course, whether or not they can return to life is still a matter of some ...debate.
What exactly is a mummy?
Back in Egyptian times, they would also mummify animals. Here's a fish mummy from the Met Museum. (Wikimedia/Public Domain)
When you hear the word mummy, most people think of a shambling monster covered in tattered canvas bandages. However, technically a mummy is any body that has been preserved after it died.
This preservation can happen through a variety of natural means, or through deliberate processes. Mummies don’t even have to be people!
A variety of animal mummies have been found over the years. In Ancient Egypt, cats were often mummified alongside their owners.
Are mummies really cursed?
A sarcophagus — a type of coffin where you would find a mummy.
Everybody knows that one of the quickest ways to end up cursed is to break into a mummy’s tomb. It’s one of the most widely known monster legends on Earth. But is there any truth to it? And where did it start?
Archaeologist Howard Carter opens King Tutankhamun's tomb near Luxor, Egypt in 1922. (Wikimedia/Public Domain)
The best known example of this legend is the curse of King Tut. British archeologist Howard Carter led a team that discovered and unearthed the tomb of King Tutankhamun, a young pharaoh, in 1922.
Shortly after opening the tomb, a number of people who were present passed away under unfortunate or mysterious circumstances. The first was Lord Carnarvon, who had funded the expedition.
All of Tutankhamun's treasures, including his famous death mask, occasionally travels around the world in an exhibit so people outside Egypt can see them. (Tarekheikal/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 4.0)
Today, most people don't believe in the mummy’s curse. After all, out of 58 people who were there when the tomb was entered, only eight had strange things happen to them.
Howard Carter, who as the leader of the expedition, should have been the focus of the curse, lived until 1939 to the ripe old age of 64!
How are mummies made?
The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, guarded by the Great Sphinx. These are where the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt were buried. (Ziad bakry/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 4.0)
The most famous mummies are Egyptian mummies. In Ancient Egypt, people believed that in the afterlife, you would need the things you owned on Earth, including your body!
So, they went to great lengths to preserve it. Wealthy Egyptians were usually the only ones who could afford tombs where they and their possessions were buried.
The Egyptian rulers, called pharaohs (say "fare-OHs"), had the grandest tombs of all: the pyramids!
A set of canopic jars in the image of the four sons of Horus, an Egyptian god. Each of them was believed to protect different organs of the body. (Walters Art Museum/Wikimedia)
To make a mummy, priests would clean and purify the body.
Next, they would remove all the organs except the heart, which would keep the body from rotting. These organs were put into special containers called canopic jars, which were also placed in the tomb.
The heart remained in the body because it was thought to be the centre of both thought and feeling.
An Egyptian mummy in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. (Vania Teofilo/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0)
After removing the organs, the body was then stuffed, and dried by rubbing it with a kind of natural salt called natron. After a period of time, usually 40-50 days, the stuffing was taken out and replaced with linen or sawdust.
The body was then wrapped all over with linen (those bandages mummies wear in every movie you’ve ever seen).
A special shroud was then placed over the body, and the whole thing was placed in a sarcophagus — an ornate, decorated stone coffin.
Where have mummies been found?
In some European Catholic churches, you can see the mummies of saints, such as this one of Saint Zita in the basilica of San Frediano in Lucca, Italy. (Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0)
Although Egyptian mummies are the most famous, other cultures throughout history have also created them.
The oldest mummies in the world were discovered in Chile and were made by the Chinchorro people about 9,000 years ago!
Other cultures that have made mummies include the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Incas of South America. In fact, certain cultures, like some villages in Papua New Guinea are still making mummies today!
