Canarian mummies

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Human corpses from before the European conquest have been found in the Canary Islands , the condition of which suggests that the deceased were treated before burial and thus protected from decomposition .

Historical reports

Representation of a burial cave from the 18th century based on the report from the 16th century

Even before the Europeans conquered the Canary Islands, there were reports of mummifications and burial caves in which several hundred deceased were buried. The English trader Thomas Nichols reported in a book published in England in 1583 that he had seen caves in which there were 300 bodies, the flesh of which was dried and which were light as parchment.

The burial and mummification practices of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands were described by Juan de Abreu Galindo and Alonso de Espinosa around 1600 (about 100 years after the completion of the conquest). The differences between the reports are justified by the fact that there were different approaches. Archaeological findings are available for both descriptions.

Development of research

In the 19th century, many northern Europeans developed a special interest in the Canary Islands. This affected geology and botany on the one hand, but also history, including early history, on the other. Foreign museums, but also private collectors, bought Canarian mummies and skeletons and brought them to different countries.

The Museo Arqueológico y Etnográfico de Tenerife (today Museo de Naturaleza y Arqueología ) initiated an international program in 1989 to research Canarian mummies. In 1992, the first results of the scientific research were presented at the I Congreso Internacional de Estudios sobre Momias in Puerto de la Cruz. The government of the Canary Islands is endeavoring to bring prehistoric objects from outside the islands back to the islands or at least to obtain precise research results of the archaeological finds from the various countries.

The only Canarian mummy to be found in Germany has been part of the collection of the Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology at the Georg August University of Göttingen since 1802 . These are the remains of a 30- to 40-year-old woman who lived on the island of Tenerife in the late 13th or early 14th century.

The research results so far show that the mummies that were found on Tenerife were made between the 5th century AD and the 14th century AD. The deceased were both men and women. In some cases the innards were removed without the liver but never the brain. The conservation of the corpses found on the other islands appears to be due more to natural climatic conditions. The corpses seem to have been partially treated but not with the aim of mummification.

Types of treatment

Mummy of a man in the Museo de Naturaleza y Arqueología in Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Various reports have been received about the process of mummification from the time after the conquest. These representations, which describe different ways of treating the dead, have been confirmed by archaeological studies. The preparation of the corpses and the burial were done by men and women who stood outside of society and only treated the dead of their sex.

There are basically three different procedures:

  • In the most elaborate procedure, the corpse was placed in a cave and the innards, but not the brain, removed. The body was washed several times in the following days. Then it was treated with a mixture of wood from tree heather , pine bark and volcanic ash . The relatives then rubbed the body with goat or sheep butter again. At the end the dead man was wrapped in goat skins which were sewn shut. The bodies of the tribal chiefs were placed on a grave frame. Less significant people were placed on brushwood or stones to keep the soil moisture out by circulating air.
  • Another method involved washing the body thoroughly and then drying it in the sun in alternating positions for 15 days. The innards were not removed, only a preservative mixture was introduced into the body through the mouth. These corpses were then also wrapped in animal skins, which were sewn shut. This preservation method was used on most of the Canarian mummies known today.
  • The simplest procedure was to wash the bodies of the deceased with water and salt and then dry them in the sun.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alejandro Cioranescu: Thomas Nichols, mercader de azúcar, hispanista y hereje . Con la edición y traducción de su “Descripción de las Islas Afortunadas”. Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 1963, p. 117 (Spanish, iecanvieravirtual.org [accessed March 1, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Hans-Joachim Ulbrich: Death and the cult of the dead among the natives of Tenerife (Canary Islands) . In: Almogaren . No. 32–33 , 2002, pp. 109 ( almogaren.org [accessed December 12, 2016]).
  3. ↑ Museo Arqueológico y Etnográfieo de Tenerife (ed.): I Congreso Internacional de Estudios sobre Momias . Cabildo de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1992 (Spanish, museosdetenerife.org [accessed February 13, 2019]).
  4. ↑ Woman from the Guanche culture (sic! Separated without a hyphen). (pdf) Press information on the special exhibition "Mummies of the World". Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum, 2015, accessed June 28, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Conrado Rodríguez-Maffiote: Estamos en uno de los mejores momentos en cuanto a la investigación sobre la cultura guanche. Corporación Radio Televisión Española, 2020, accessed June 8, 2020 (Spanish).
  6. ↑ Hans-Joachim Ulbrich: Death and the cult of the dead among the natives of Tenerife (Canary Islands) . In: Almogaren . No. 32–33 , 2002, pp. 114 ( almogaren.org [accessed December 12, 2016]).