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Death and taxes are famously inevitable,
but what about decomposition?
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As anyone who's seen a mummy knows,
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Ancient Egyptians went to a lot of trouble
to evade decomposition.
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So, how successful were they?
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Living cells constantly renew themselves.
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Specialized enzymes
decompose old structures,
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and the raw materials
are used to build new ones.
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But what happens when someone dies?
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Their dead cells are no longer
able to renew themselves,
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but the enzymes
keep breaking everything down.
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So anyone looking to preserve a body
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needed to get ahead of those enzymes
before the tissues began to rot.
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Neurons die quickly,
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so brains were a lost cause
to Ancient Egyptian mummifiers,
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which is why, according
to Greek historian Herodotus,
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they started the process
by hammering a spike into the skull,
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mashing up the brain,
flushing it out the nose
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and pouring tree resins into the skull
to prevent further decomposition.
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Brains may decay first,
but decaying guts are much worse.
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The liver, stomach and intestines
contain digestive enzymes and bacteria,
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which, upon death, start eating
the corpse from the inside.
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So the Priests removed the lungs
and abdominal organs first.
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It was difficult to remove the lungs
without damaging the heart,
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but because the heart was believed
to be the seat of the soul,
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they treated it with special care.
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The placed the visceral organs in jars
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filled with a naturally occurring salt
called natron.
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Like any salt, natron can prevent decay
by killing bacteria
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and preventing the body's natural
digestive enzymes from working.
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But natron isn't just any salt.
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It's mainly a mixture
of two alkaline salts,
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soda ash and baking soda.
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Alkaline salts are especially
deadly to bacteria.
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And they can turn fatty membranes
into a hard, soapy substance,
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thereby maintaining
the corpse's structure.
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After dealing with the internal organs,
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the Priest stuffed the body cavity
with sacks of more natron
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and washed it clean to disinfect the skin.
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Then, the corpse was set in a bed
of still more natron
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for about 35 days
to preserve its outer flesh.
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But the time of its removal,
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the alkaline salts
had sucked the fluid from the body
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and formed hard brown clumps.
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The corpse wasn't putrid,
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but it didn't exactly smell good, either.
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So, Priests poured tree resin over
the body to seal it,
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massaged it with a waxy mixture
that included cedar oil,
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and then wrapped it in linen.
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Finally, they placed the mummy
in a series of nested coffins
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and sometimes even a stone sarcophagus.
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So how successful were
the Ancient Egyptians at evading decay?
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On one hand, mummies are definitely not
intact human bodies.
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Their brains have been mashed up
and flushed out,
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their organs have been removed
and salted like salami,
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and about half of their remaining
body mass has been drained away.
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Still, what remains
is amazingly well-preserved.
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Even after thousands of years,
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scientists can perform autopsies
on mummies
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to determine their causes of death,
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and possibly even isolate DNA samples.
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This has given us new information.
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For example, it seems that air pollution
was a serious problem in Ancient Egypt,
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probably because of indoor fires
used to bake bread.
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Cardiovascular disease was also common,
as was tuberculosis.
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So Ancient Egyptians were somewhat
successful at evading decay.
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Still, like death, taxes are inevitable.
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When some mummies were transported,
they were taxed as salted fish.