Thousands of years before humans intentionally mummified their bodies, nature did it for them through various environments.
Researchers took brain samples from Ötzi's mummy. Photo: National Geographic
When left in the wild, human bodies are often reduced to skeletons after a few years. Mummified civilizations like the ancient Egyptians were only able to avoid this reality by using a complex burial process that involved special tools, chemicals, and manipulation, according to National Geographic .
There are, however, ways to permanently mummify a body that don’t involve canopic jars, natron salts, or brain-removal tools. In fact, some of the oldest Egyptian mummies are likely to have been created by accident, says Frank Rühli, director of the Institute for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich and director of the Foundation for Mummification and Paleopathology. Buried in shallow gravel, bodies can be naturally preserved for thousands of years by the hot, dry environment of the Saharan sands. Rühli believes this may have inspired the ancient Egyptians to begin mummifying the people they revered.
The hot, dry desert is just one of many environments that can naturally mummify a body. Scientists explain how environments ranging from swamps to icebergs can prevent decomposition and mummification.
Desert
Egypt isn't the only desert civilization famous for its mummies. The Chinchorro people of northern Chile began mummifying their bodies about 2,000 years before the Egyptians. But thousands of years before that, the Atacama Desert did it for them. "One of the interesting things about the Chinchorro mummies is that some were deliberately prepared, while others were naturally mummified," says anthropologist Bernardo Arriaza of the University of Tarapacá in Chile, who specializes in Chinchorro mummies.
Decomposition is a biological process, and without water, living things cannot function. This is why deserts preserve mummies so well, and why Egyptian and Chinchorro mummification included a step of desiccation. The oldest Chinchorro mummy, Acha Man, was naturally preserved by the desert for over 9,000 years. The Tarim Mummy in Xinjiang, China, is among the most intact, buried in a boat-shaped coffin for 4,000 years in the Taklamakan Desert.
Salt
E For some unlucky Iranian miners trapped in a cave-in at the Chehrabad Salt Mine, salt was as good a preservative as the desert. “They were working in the salt mine and then the mine collapsed,” Rühli explains. This happened multiple times (at least twice) over the course of more than 1,000 years. The salt mine became a burial ground for young men who had lived centuries apart. As the weight of the salt pressed down on the miners, the salt rock sucked the water out of their bodies, mummifying them.
Salt in the dry soil of the Atacama Desert also helped preserve the Chinchorro mummies, according to Arriaza. The soil contains many compounds such as nitrate, nitrogen, potassium, sodium and calcium, which contribute to dehydration in the body.
Ice
Dehydrating a body isn’t the only way to prevent decomposition. Cold temperatures slow most biological processes, and freezing a body completely will also prevent decomposition for thousands of years. Pathologist Andreas Nerlich at the Munich Klinik Bogenhausen studied Ötzi, a 5,300-year-old ice mummy found in a melting glacier in the Ötztal Alps near the Austrian-Italian border. Mummies like Ötztal will be preserved as long as there is ice, he says.
Although rare, ice mummies can be remarkably well preserved compared to dehydrated mummies. This is because the dehydration process causes the tissues to wrinkle and deform, but the frozen organs largely retain their shape. Permafrost, the soil that remains frozen year-round, can also mummify. The 2,500-year-old Ice Maiden in Siberia was frozen in a block of ice after her crypt was flooded. Because the crypt was in permafrost, the ice that formed inside never melted.
Freeze dried
The combination of cold and dry conditions can mummify even when the environment is not consistently cold enough to keep a body frozen year-round. That is what happened to some of the bodies of Inuit women and children in Greenland. They were naturally mummified in their graves after death, likely due to famine or disease in the 15th and 16th centuries.
"Although it is very cold in Greenland, the environment is not like the Arctic with its permafrost," said paleopathologist Niels Lynnerup at the University of Copenhagen. "The bodies were buried in crevices in the rocks, so there was still wind blowing through them, which dried the bodies and combined with the slow-down effect of the cold temperatures on bacteria, created mummies.
Most Inca mummies discovered in the Andes were similarly preserved. The mummy of the Virgin of Llullaillaco, an Inca girl who froze to death in the Andes after a ritual sacrifice, is a unique case of freezing.
An Khang (According to National Geographic )
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