mummification

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The mummification is an artificially driven by human technology for the preservation of a body or body part of a living being in certain, mostly dry conditions. If a whole body is mummified, it is called a mummy . If a mummy is not created due to human intervention, but due to a natural process, one does not speak of mummification, but of mummification . The principle behind the production of dried fish or baked fruit is also a mummification. The embalming represented in the mummification process while an important step, is on its own but not the complete mummification. A equating the terms can not be made, therefore, although they are closely related.

Mummification in ancient Egypt

The Egyptians believed in resuscitation after death ; but this was only possible if the soul could find and recognize the body again. For this, the body had to be intact. This is how the custom of mummification came about. This technique, especially with the old Egyptians associated is initially consisted of extraction of the brain through the nose by means of hooks and the opening of the body by a wedging section, abdominal-lateral (abdomen, stomach-side) or by widening of the anus .

Now the step of embalming followed. A mixture of cedar oil , pressed radish juice and myrrh oil was instilled into the opening, then the corpse was tied with bent knees and placed in an elongated, large clay pot ( pithos ), which was filled with special oil. The body remained there for about four to six weeks and was then removed. The internal organs, which had become liquefied by the oil mixture, drained; only the skeleton and the skin remained. The body was washed and externally tanned with a mixture of camel or horse urine, special oils and sometimes frankincense resin .

In the case of high-ranking personalities, it was customary to place the internal organs in special vessels, the canopi . So they were not liquefied. The heart was mostly left in its place in the stuffed corpse. Occasionally the corpse was additionally stuffed with a mixture of wool, dried, antiseptic , fragrant herbs and incense resin beads.

Mummification in South America and Asia

Various peoples of South America (for example the Chinchorro culture ) also practiced mummification. Centuries-old traditions of ritual self-mummification existed in Japan in the form of sokushinbutsu and in Tibet .

Fire mummification

Another type of mummification is the fire mummification of the Ibaloi culture in the province of Benguet , Philippines . With this type of mummification, the preparations for mummification were initiated shortly before the death of the affected person by giving the affected person a lot of salt and supplied alkaline drinks. After death, the body was positioned in a sitting position over a low to medium intensity fire until the body was completely dehydrated . This process could take up to two years and at the end the body was embalmed with plant extracts. This type of mummification was carried out from the 10th to the 16th centuries and is considered worldwide as the second example of active mummification of the dead, which was carried out using a different technique than the method of mummification in ancient Egypt . These mummies are known as " Kabayan Mummies known" and stand on the proposed list of the Philippines since 2006 for inclusion in the World Heritage List of UNESCO .

Smoke mummification

In this technique, after the corpse has been washed and pretreated with certain substances, it is tied together and hung on a branch under which a heavily smoking fire is lit. The corpse hangs there for several days and turns black as the process progresses. Then he is buried. This technique was used by the indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand , but traces of this mummification method can also be found in ancient India .

This technique also allows food to be preserved. (see also smoking )

Mellification

Mellification is the process by which a human corpse is macerated in honey . The preserving effect of honey is explained by its low water content, which has a drying effect through osmosis , its relatively low pH value and the various antibiotic substances it contains. Honey was used in the burial culture of various cultures: For example, Burmese priests preserve famous abbots in coffins filled with honey. Even Alexander the Great said to have been preserved after his death in honey.

Self-mummification

Japanese monks, through the practice of sokushinbutsu, achieved self-mummification by following a special sequence of actions and diets . A similar approach is reported from Tibet.

Mummification in modern times

Corpses have also been preserved for posterity in modern times - not for religious reasons, but for ideological reasons. Examples of this are the mummies of Lenin , Mao Zedong , Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-il . Probably the best preserved mummy is that of two-year-old Rosalia Lombardo , who has been in the crypt vault of the Capuchin convent in Palermo since 1920 .

Natural mummification

Partly intentional, partly unintentional, corpses can naturally mummify themselves under certain circumstances.

On the one hand, there is mummification due to the exclusion of oxygen, which leads to wax corpse . The exclusion of oxygen prevents the decomposition processes. The putrefaction processes that take place inside the body, which take place without oxygen with the help of the body's own enzymes, are also stopped by the waste products that they produce themselves and that cannot escape (e.g. ammonia). This will preserve the corpse. There are reports that in some German cemeteries mummifications occur on corpses buried in coffins. This poses a problem because they do not decompose in the allotted time, but the cemetery space has a fixed length of time and should then be released for other purposes. In the case of burial in the ground, oxygen is excluded and thus the undesirable formation of wax corpses occurs, for example, through tight-fitting death clothes made of plastic fibers, or on the less air-permeable soil (e.g. clay soil). The premortal intake of antibiotics or small amounts of radioactive radiation also favors mummification as wax corpses. A prominent example of mummification by excluding oxygen is the Marquise of Dai .

A second way of natural mummification is drying out. The corpse lies in an environment that is well ventilated and dry and in which liquids can ideally run off. The putrefaction and putrefaction processes are stopped by the removal of moisture. Examples include a hot, windy desert floor or a ventilated burial site. Natural "competitors" of this type of mummification are insects or other animals that lay their eggs on the corpse, or scavengers. The glacier corpse can be described as a special form of desiccation, the mummification of which is due to freeze-drying. One example is Ötzi .

See also

literature

  • Egyptian mummies. Immortality in the land of the pharaohs. Edited by Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart, von Zabern, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8053-3778-6 .
  • Hans Georg Wunderlich: Where the bull took Europe. Crete's secret and the awakening of the West. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1976, English as: The Secret of Crete. Efstathiadis, Athens 1994, ISBN 9602262613 .
  • Mircea Eliade : Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses. Edition Pavot, Paris 1976, German as: History of religious ideas. 5 vols. Herder, Freiburg.
  • Jan Assmann : Death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt. Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-46570-6 ; Special edition, 2nd edition, Beck, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-49707-0 .
  • Milan Racek: Who did not go to earth. Cultural history of conservative forms of burial. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1985, ISBN 3205072448 .
  • Renate Germer: Mummies. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-491-96153-X .
  • Klaus Volke: The chemistry of mummification in ancient Egypt. In: Chemistry in Our Time. 1993, Vol. 27, No. 1, ISSN  0009-2851 , pp. 42-47.
  • Alfried Wieczorek, Michael Tellenbach, Wilfried Rosendahl (eds.): Mummies. The dream of eternal life. von Zabern, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8053-3779-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The mummy - the secret of the Tibetan monks. spiegel.de, accessed on April 7, 2014 .
  2. ↑ http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/2070/ Kabayan Mummy Burial Caves. May 16, 2006
  3. ↑ Wahdan H: Causes of the antimicrobial activity of honey . In: Infection . 26, No. 1, 1998, pp. 26-31. doi : 10.1007 / BF02768748 . PMID 9505176 .
  4. ↑ Honey as an Antimicrobial Agent . Waikato Honey Research Unit. November 16, 2006. Retrieved June 2, 2007.
  5. ↑ Phongyi Pyan, the Cremation of a Monk . On myanmars.net ; last accessed on April 8, 2014.
  6. ↑ Christoph Kleine: Die for the Buddha, Die like the Buddha page 11 ff., Published 2003, loaded on July 6, 2016
  7. ↑ The mummy - the secret of the Tibetan monks. spiegel.de, accessed on April 7, 2014 .
  8. ↑ Tired floors, tough corpses . On: zeit.de of July 17, 2003, last accessed on June 18, 2015.
  9. ↑ Christine Böhringer: Grave goods - With mushrooms to eternal rest . On: zeit.de from April 6, 2007, last accessed on June 18, 2015.
  10. ↑ Urs Willmann: Friedhof - Tired floors, tough corpses . On: zeit.de of October 30, 2003, last accessed on June 18, 2015.
  11. ↑ Kai Michel: History - And the dead still talk . On: zeit.de from July 2003, last accessed on June 18, 2015.