How To Make An Egyptian Mummy: Step Two – Removal of Internal Organs
The body is clean, the incision on the left side of the body has been made and the slitter has been chased from the per-wabet, or the ritual embalming tent. While the ritual hymns and prayers are perpetually chanted over the body, the wetyw, or The Bandager, sets to work. He first had to remove the internal organs to stem decay.
The internal organs are soft, warm and wet, a perfect breeding ground for decay. This is the root of the ancient Egyptians’ problems when mummifying a body. As the body needs to be dried out, these water-retaining organs prove to be the most problematic. In the “perfect process” they are removed. This allows the rest of the body to be mummified without fear of any moisture remaining in the body to threaten it with decay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_anatomy).
According to Dr. Bob Brier as he began mummifying the modern mummy, the organs were not easy to remove. The liver, especially, was difficult as it was larger than the incision in the mummy’s side. After some work, the liver was successfully removed, along with the rest of the internal organs. Each organ was set aside in a shallow container and covered in natron salt for them to dry out completely (http://www.egyptartsite.com/mummy.html). No person would be allowed to enter the afterlife without his body being complete. Each organ was necessary to the individual’s life after death. The organs had their protectors, as well, gods whose sole purpose was to protect a single organ. These four deities were the sons of Horus. Imset, the human, protected the liver, Hapy, the baboon, guarded the lungs, Qebkh-senuef, the falcon, safeguarded the intestines, and Duamutef, the jackal, defended the stomach. The heart, depending on the time period, was either left in place, or removed along with the other organs, only to be replaced later (http://blee.biz/history/mummify.html).
The heart was perhaps the most important organ. The ancient Egyptians believed the heart was the seat of all knowledge. It was the heart that was weighed against the feather of truth, or the Feather of Ma’at, before Osiris gave his consent that the deceased could live forever. Should the heart prove heavier than the Feather of Ma’at, it would judged to be impure and would be thrown to Ammut, the Devourer. Ammut was a fearsome goddess with the head of a crocodile, the torso of a leopard, and the rear end of a hippopotamus. Should the heart be thrown to the Devourer, the deceased would truly die for all eternity. If the heart weighed the same as the Feather of Ma’at, the deceased would be welcomed into Osiris’ arms and be given the chance to live for all eternity (http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/dead.htm).
One organ, the brain, was considered to be useless. It was one of the wettest organs, and thus more prone to decay than almost any other organ in the human body and thus needed to be removed. According to Herodotus, the brain was often removed through the nose. Occasionally, for less expensive mummifications, the brain would be removed through the back of the neck, but that was considered too invasive and too destructive for the “perfect process.” The nose was the preferable way to remove the brain. Dr. Bob Brier followed Herodotus’ directions. He punched a hard hook, much like a crochet needle, through the thin bone separating the nasal passages from the brain cavity. Dr. Brier then attempted to remove the brain with the same hooked tool. The brain proved to be too fragile for such an operation and broke instead of easily sliding out the nose as Herodotus described. Dr. Brier and his colleagues surveyed the tools they had amassed for the process and noticed one tool that had yet to be used. It was a long wire-like hook. An idea occurred to the team. They threaded the long wire into the nasal passageway and began to pulverize the brain until it could easily drain out of the nose when the body was placed on its stomach (http://www.egyptartsite.com/mummy.html).
The body was devoid of all its internal organs by this point. After a few final prayers, the priests covered the body with natron salt. There they let it sit for a total of thirty-five days (http://www.egyptartsite.com/mummy.html).
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