The papyrus includes brand-new proof of the treatment for embalming the deceased’s face, where the face is covered with a piece of red linen and fragrant compounds. Credit: Ida Christensen, University of Copenhagen
Based on a handbook just recently found in a 3,500-year-old medical papyrus, University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt has actually had the ability to assist rebuild the embalming procedure utilized to prepare ancient Egyptians for the afterlife. It is the earliest enduring handbook on mummification yet found.
In ancient Egypt, embalming was thought about a spiritual art, and understanding of the procedure was the protect of extremely couple of people. Most tricks of the art were most likely handed down orally from one embalmer to the other, Egyptologists think, so written proof is limited; till just recently, just 2 texts on mummification had actually been recognized.
Egyptologists were for that reason shocked to discover a brief handbook on embalming in a medical text that is mostly interested in organic medication and swellings of the skin. The handbook has actually just recently been modified by University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt:
“Many descriptions of embalming techniques that we find in this papyrus have been left out of the two later manuals, and the descriptions are extremely detailed. The text reads like a memory aid, so the intended readers must have been specialists who needed to be reminded of these details, such as unguent recipes and uses of various types of bandages. Some of the simpler processes, e.g. the drying of the body with natron, have been omitted from the text,” Sofie Schiødt describes. She includes:
“One of the exciting new pieces of information the text provides us with concerns the procedure for embalming the dead person’s face. We get a list of ingredients for a remedy consisting largely of plant-based aromatic substances and binders that are cooked into a liquid, with which the embalmers coat a piece of red linen. The red linen is then applied to the dead person’s face in order to encase it in a protective cocoon of fragrant and anti-bacterial matter. This process was repeated at four-day intervals.”
Section of the papyrus that handles swellings of the skin. Credit: The Papyrus Carlsberg Collection, University of Copenhagen
Although this treatment has actually not been recognized in the past, Egyptologists have actually formerly analyzed a number of mummies from the very same duration as this manual whose faces were covered in fabric and resin. According to Sofie Schiødt, this would fit well with the red linen treatment explained in this manuscript.
Four was the crucial number
The value of the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg handbook in rebuilding the embalming procedure depends on its requirements of the procedure being divided into periods of 4, with the embalmers actively dealing with the mummy every 4 days.
“A ritual procession of the mummy marked these days, celebrating the progress of restoring the deceased’s corporeal integrity, amounting to 17 processions over the course of the embalming period. In between the four-day intervals, the body was covered with cloth and overlaid with straw infused with aromatics to keep away insects and scavengers,” Sofie Schiødt states.
The embalming procedure
The embalming, which was carried out in a purpose-built workshop set up near the tomb, occurred over 70 days that were divided into 2 primary durations – a 35-day drying duration and a 35-day covering duration.
During the drying duration, the body was treated with dry natron both inside and outside. The natron treatment started on the 4th day of embalming after the filtration of the body, the elimination of the organs and the brain, and the collapsing of the eyes.
The 2nd 35-day duration was devoted to the enclosing of the deceased in plasters and fragrant compounds. The embalming of the face explained in the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg came from this duration.
The whole 70-day embalming procedure was divided into periods of 4 days, with the mummy being completed on day 68 and after that put in the casket, after which the last days were invested in routine activities enabling the deceased to reside on in the afterlife.
The Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg
The manuscript, which Sofie Schiødt has actually been dealing with for her PhD thesis, is the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg – so called due to the fact that one half of the papyrus comes from the Louvre Museum in Paris and the other half becomes part of the University of Copenhagen’s Papyrus Carlsberg Collection. The 2 parts of the papyrus initially came from 2 personal collectors, and a number of areas of it are still missing out on. Based on the palaeography, that is, the indication types, the 6 metre long papyrus is dated to around 1450 BC, which indicates that it precedes the just 2 other examples of embalming texts by more than a thousand years.
The bulk of the papyrus, which is the second-longest medical papyrus enduring from ancient Egypt, handles organic medication and skin health problems. Specifically, it includes the earliest-known organic writing, which supplies descriptions of the look, environment, utilizes, and spiritual significance of a magnificent plant and its seed in addition to a prolonged writing on swellings of the skin, which are viewed as health problems sent out forth by the lunar god Khonsu.
The Louvre papyrus has actually been released in an initial translation by Thierry Bardinet in 2018 (Médecins et magicient à la cour du pharaon), however the last text edition is prepared for 2022 as a partnership in between the Louvre Museum and the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection.
