A Non-harmful Method for Analyzing Ancient Egyptian Embalming Materials

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Analyzing Ancient Egyptian Embalming Materials

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Researchers evaluated embalming product from the neck of this Ancient Egyptian mummy, which was obtained by a French museum in 1837. Credit: Frédérique Vincent, ethnographic conservator

Ancient Egyptian mummies have lots of tales to inform, however opening their tricks without ruining fragile remains is challenging. Now, scientists reporting in A/C’ Analytical Chemistry have actually discovered a non-destructive method to examine bitumen — the substance that provides mummies their dark color — in Ancient Egyptian embalming products. The approach offers hints to the bitumen’s geographical origin and, in one experiment, exposed that a mummy in a French museum might have been partly brought back, likely by collectors.

The embalming product utilized by Ancient Egyptians was an intricate mix of natural substances such as sugar gum, beeswax, fats, coniferous resins and variable quantities of bitumen. Also called asphalt or tar, bitumen is a black, extremely thick kind of petroleum that develops mainly from fossilized algae and plants. Researchers have actually utilized numerous methods to examine Ancient Egyptian embalming products, however they normally need preparation and separation actions that damage the sample.

Charles Dutoit, Didier Gourier, and associates questioned if they might utilize a non-destructive strategy called electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to spot 2 parts of bitumen formed throughout the decay of photosynthetic life: vanadyl porphyrins and carbonaceous radicals, which might supply details on the existence, origin, and processing of bitumen in the embalming product.

The scientists acquired samples of black matter from an Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus (or casket), 2 human mummies and 4 animal mummies (all from 744-30 B.C.), which they evaluated by EPR and compared to reference bitumen samples. The group found that the relative quantities of vanadyl substances and carbonaceous radicals might separate in between bitumen of marine origin (such as from the Dead Sea) and land-plant origin (from a tar pit). Also, they spotted vanadyl substances that likely formed from responses in between the vanadyl porphyrins and other embalming parts.

Intriguingly, the black matter drawn from a human mummy obtained by a French museum in 1837 didn’t consist of any of these substances, and it was really abundant in bitumen. This mummy might have been partly brought back with pure bitumen, most likely by a personal collector to bring a greater cost prior to the museum got it, the scientists state.

Reference: “Nondestructive Analysis of Mummification Balms in Ancient Egypt Based on EPR of Vanadyl and Organic Radical Markers of Bitumen” by Charles E. Dutoit, Laurent Binet, Hitomi Fujii, Agnes Lattuati-Derieux and Didier Gourier, 16 November 2020, Analytical Chemistry.
DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.0c03116

The authors acknowledge financing from Agence Nationale de la Recherche and the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France.