Ancient Egyptians used exotic oils from distant lands to make mummies

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A store utilized for mummification astatine Saqqara successful Egypt contains remnants of the substances utilized to marque mummies, revealing galore came from confederate Africa oregon South-East Asia

Humans 1 February 2023

By Michael Marshall

An underground store recovered astatine an past Egyptian burial tract contains ceramic vessels with traces of the substances utilized to marque mummies. They see resins obtained from arsenic acold distant arsenic India and South-East Asia, indicating that past Egyptians engaged successful long-distance trade.

“We could place a ample diverseness of substances which were utilized by the embalmers,” says Maxime Rageot astatine the University of Tübingen successful Germany. “Few of them were locally available.”

The workshop, dating from astir 600 BC, was discovered successful 2016 astatine Saqqara, which was the burial crushed of Egyptian royalty and elites for centuries. “It was utilized arsenic an elite cemetery from the precise earliest infinitesimal of the Egyptian state,” says Elaine Sullivan astatine the University of California, Santa Cruz, who wasn’t progressive successful the study.

Close to the pyramid of Unas, archaeologists led by Ramadan Hussein, besides astatine the University of Tübingen, recovered 2 vertical shafts dug into the ground. One was 13 metres heavy and led to the embalming workshop, portion the different was 30 metres heavy and led to burial chambers. Hussein died successful 2022.

It is the archetypal Egyptian embalming store to beryllium recovered underground, says squad subordinate Susanne Beck at the University of Tübingen. This whitethorn person been to support the process secret, but it besides had the vantage of keeping decaying bodies cool.

In the workshop, the squad recovered 121 beakers and bowls. Many were labelled: sometimes with instructions similar “to enactment connected his head”, sometimes with names of embalming substances and sometimes with head titles.

The researchers chose the 9 beakers and 22 bowls with the astir legible labels for analysis. They studied the chemic residues near successful the bowls to find retired what substances had been utilized during embalming and mummification.

A big of substances, including works oils, tars, resins and carnal fats, were discovered. Two examples were cedar lipid and heated beeswax. Many of the substances were known to beryllium utilized successful mummification, but immoderate were new.

One caller substance was dammar, a gum-like resin obtained from trees successful India and South-East Asia. The sanction “dammar” is simply a Malay word.

The squad besides recovered elemi: a airy yellowish resin resembling chromatic that comes from trees successful the rainforests of South Asia and confederate Africa.

The dammar and elemi amusement that Egyptian embalming drove aboriginal globalisation, says Philipp Stockhammer astatine Ludwig Maximilian University successful Munich, Germany, different subordinate of the team. “You truly needed to transport these resins implicit ample distances.” It fits with other grounds of long-distance commercialized astatine the time.

The past Egyptian elite liked exotic goods arsenic overmuch arsenic modern capitalists, says Sullivan. At times erstwhile the authorities was almighty and organised, “we spot a large involvement successful the extracurricular satellite and successful connections to the extracurricular satellite and bringing those things from the extracurricular satellite together”.

Stockhammer and Sullivan some accidental that the substances were transported by chains of traders. “The Egyptians don’t person to beryllium going to the eastbound broadside of India themselves,” says Sullivan.

The researchers were besides capable to construe 2 caller words. Many texts connected mummification notation to antiu and sefet. The erstwhile had been tentatively translated arsenic “myrrh” oregon “incense”, and the second arsenic “a ineffable oil”. However, due to the fact that they were written connected pieces of pottery with residue inside, it was imaginable to place them. It turns retired antiu is simply a substance of oils oregon tars from conifers. Meanwhile, sefet is an unguent – an ointment oregon lubricant – containing works additives.

Many of the substances had antibacterial and antifungal properties, and were combined into elaborate mixtures. For Stockhammer, the complexity of the substances displays “enormous idiosyncratic cognition that was accumulated done these centuries of acquisition of embalming quality individuals”.

That fits with textual grounds that priests tasked with embalming were important radical with sizeable skill, says Sullivan. “They would person needed to person a batch of ritual cognition and a batch of worldly knowledge,” she says. The assemblage had to beryllium preserved physically and rites had to beryllium performed correctly according to the Egyptian religion. It was “both a spiritual and carnal practice”.