Mummy Workshop

In an article published in the premier science journal _Nature_ earlier this week, a team of scholars announced their analyses of the operations of the first-ever discovered mummification workshop, and what they found was fascinating!

This picture shows the layout of the “mummy factory”, first unearthed at the Egyptian site of Saqqara, about 20 miles south of Cairo. (Archaeologists only found it in 2016.) You see on top some shallow pits — this is where Egyptian embalmers put the corpses initially, after covering them in a salt mixture of natron to dry them out.

The bodies then were sent below to the next level to an underground chamber where an extremely complex chemical process of transformation took place. Resins from trees from Lebanon’s Cesar forests, animal fats, beeswax, and many other substances (including some extracted from hardwoods as far away as Southeast Asian rainforests) were discovered as residues on the pottery remains in this ancient workshop. Altogether, these products had crucial anti-fungal and antibacterial properties that preserved the corpses from decay — embalmers had figured this out millennia before modern knowledge of pathogens. Finally, after about 70 days of preparation, the mummies were placed in the burial chamber, 30 meters below ground.

This workshop is an amazing discovery because it presents a complete picture of how mummification operated in one particular moment in time. Saqqara’s mummy factory was used between 664-525 BCE — a solid example of how popular mummification remained as a practice even after the fall of the New Kingdom in 1075 BCE. Those Ancient Egyptians who had the resources considered the preparation of their bodies and their burial a top priority — the “specialness” of being able to turn their dead bodies into something that wouldn’t decay and the promise of eternal life were motivators for the business of mummification for thousands of years.