Much doubt exists regarding the derivation of the word mummy. Bochard, Menage, Vossius, attributed it to the Arabic noun mum, meaning wax. Salmasius derives it from mumia, a body embalmed and aromatized. The Persian word mÚmiyÀ, means bitumen or mineral pitch. Abd-Allatif, an Arabian physician, describes mummy as a substance flowing from the tops of the mountains, and which mixing with the water that streamed down, coagulates like mineral pitch.

Many are the opinions relating to the custom of embalming men and various animals in ancient Egypt. By some it has been considered a superstitious practice, by others the result of affection. To keep the remains of those we loved upon earth free from the destructive power of death, and preserving in some degree those forms that once flitted before us and around us in all the enjoyments of life, is a natural, one might almost say an instinctive, sentiment;—preserving those fond remains upon earth, exempted from the painful sight of beholding them committed to the earth—earth to earth—for ever! How different must have been the feelings of the relatives of the departed, when leaving the body reposing in the tomb, still preserving the form of its mortal coil—still in the world—where all we loved might be visited and spoken to in the language of affection and regret—how different must have been these feelings when compared to those that compress the respiration and check our utterance, after seeing that body separated from us, and leaving a chasm around us deeper still than the grave. We are, however, to seek in this practice other motives. The wisdom of the theocratic government of ancient Egypt was most admirable, and not founded upon mortal affections and dislikes. The sovereign priesthood had to attend to concerns of greater magnitude. The first inhabitants of Egypt, migrating most probably from the upper regions of Ethiopia, had to colonize an unhealthy region, to struggle with swamps and marshes, and destroy myriads of animals, whose decomposition added to the dangers they had to encounter when settling in such an unhealthy land. Pestilence, no doubt, as in after times, frequently desolated the infant kingdom. Their priests, in whose temples were recorded in mystic legends all the science of the age, must have applied their experience and their judgment to meet the evil, and surmount it, were it possible. The ideas of corruption are closely connected with those of putrescency; and putrescency has ever been considered the chief source and focus of pestilential maladies. To avoid corruption and putrescence, then, became one of the most important Hygienic studies; and, like Moses, who had received his early education in Egypt, its priesthood enforced salutary laws as the injunction of the Creator; nor was the task as difficult as it might have proved in a more extensive and more diversified region. The population resided in a land of no very great extent; their climate did not vary according to prominent topographical circumstances; and the produce of the soil, as regarded alimentary substances, admitted of little variety. Thus it became easy to establish salutary institutions to regulate the mode of living of the obedient people, who looked upon the commands of their sainted legislators as dictates from the eternal throne.

Impressed with the conviction of the immortality of the soul, the Egyptian priesthood imagined, or, at any rate, endeavoured to persuade the multitude that the immortal part of our being was retained within its earthly house so long as the corporal form could be preserved entire, and if (which is most probable) they believed in the resurrection of the soul either in its human form or that of some other animal, this doctrine may be easily accounted for as founded upon reason, and grateful to the sensitive feelings. A belief in the transmigration of souls naturally led to the desire of retaining them as long as it was possible in their former abodes; and the lines of Virgil—

Animamque sepulchro,
Condimus,

would seem to warrant this belief amongst the ancients. St. Augustine clearly tells us that the Egyptians did believe in a resurrection.

Amongst other prophylactic means to resist epidemic diseases the embalming of the dead must naturally have occurred to the sacred college as one of the most effectual means of checking or preventing contagion. Not only was man submitted to this process, but every animal, domestic or obnoxious, was equally preserved. It may be said, if destruction was rendered a prudent step, why were not these bodies consumed by fire? The reason appears to me obvious. It was necessary to check the consumption of animal food; therefore were various animals considered sacred, and not allowed to be immolated for the use of the multitude; other animals were considered noxious, and as such their use was forbidden. Religion thus stamped them with the irrevocable dye of holiness or corruption. Mystic characters were traced upon their remains. The sanctity of these animals sometimes varied in different districts, and the ibis was venerated where the serpent was disregarded. When we contemplate the thousands of crocodiles in the caverns of Samoun, the myriads of the ibis in the desert of Hermopolis, AntinoË, Memphis,—when we behold even the eggs that were destined to perpetuate their race thus preserved,—had not these animals been thus respected, they would have become the food of the inhabitants, and, both from their abundance and their unwholesome qualities, have added to the frequent scourges that desolated the land.

Here again we find that this anomaly was unavoidable: those myriads of animals, from the nature of the climate and the soil would have increased to such numbers as to overrun the land. What was to be done? Had they been considered edible, most unquestionably they would have been devoured as food; it therefore became necessary to destroy and embalm them: this destruction was no doubt inculcated as a religious duty; otherwise, how should we find even to the present day, such numbers of these creatures, preserved through the lapse of ages, with their very eggs,—another proof that even their incubation was checked. Placed between the desolate desert and the sea, numerous must have been the races of animals who sought refuge in this wondrous region; and, as Lagasquie observes, in the Necropolis of Alexandria and Memphis, at ArsinoË, Charaounah, Achmin, Beni-Hacan, Samoun, Hermopolis, Thebes, and in innumerable hypogean monuments, we find the remains of thousands—nay of millions—of ibises, crocodiles, cats, rats, dogs, jackals, wolves, monkeys, serpents, nay, fishes of various kinds. Passalacqua found at Thebes numbers of birds, rats, mice, toads, adders, beetles and flies, all embalmed together. Nay, Herodotus informs us that the animals considered sacred in one city, were held in abhorrence in others, a difference of opinion that not unfrequently occasioned bitter hostilities. Thus the Ombites fought with the Tentyrites on account of the sparrowhawks, and the Cynopolitans waged war with the Oxyrhynchites from disputes about dogs and pikes. These schisms no doubt arose from priestly ambition, each temple claiming its especial shrine of adoration, for whatever might have been the original motive that led to those theological practices, there is no doubt but all these animals were to a certain degree typical of the good and evil propensities of the various deities, as manifested in their several habits, whence they were selected in the symbols and attributes of the sovereign powers. AbbÉ Banier endeavours to prove that the bull was the symbol of Osiris and Isis, and that these divinities were themselves symbolic of the sun and moon. Thus the worship of the bull, MnÉvis and Apis. The inhabitants of Mendes adored the god Pan, and worshipped him under the figure of a goat, and Mercury is represented with the head of a dog, the most intelligent of animals. Thus in time people lost sight of the origin of the worship, and transferred their adoration to the symbols, as many Roman Catholics transfer their worship of the saints to their wooden images.

The priesthood of Egypt sought not their power in terror, but in affection and gratitude. They strove to convince the people that they were their true friends and real benefactors; their sole study was their welfare, their greatest pride the nation’s prosperity. Gratitude appears to be the sentiment they most sought to inculcate. The serpent was held in veneration, because it destroyed noxious vermin; the ibis was respected from the same motive; the crocodile for the protection it afforded their navigable waters; yet, by one of those strange anomalies that we find in most mythological reveries, animals were held sacred, although they constantly destroyed other sacred creatures; and while the crocodile was worshipped, the ichneumons that destroyed its eggs were also entitled to respect. Such was the value of the remains of departed relatives and friends, that their embalmed bodies were often pledged for large sums. The more readily advanced, since their redemption was considered a sacred duty. Thus do we find worldly regulations, bearing the sanctity of a theologic seal. Then again how mighty must have been the hierarchy from whose doctrines emanated the Pharaonic splendour of their stupendous monuments—works of art, that attracted the notice and the admiration of all the civilized part of the globe, whose travellers while they flocked to view their magnificence, were taught to cultivate the sciences and arts, which the priesthood professed, smatterings of which those visiters proudly carried back as a precious gift to their country. Moreover what occupation must have been afforded to the people and to their numerous captives, whom they continually dreaded, from the apprehension that in their constant wars, their prisoners might join their enemies—a circumstance fully proved in Holy Writ, where we find, in Exodus i. 10, that the Hebrews were oppressed, “lest when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies and fight against us.”

This overwhelming power, most fortunately wise and humane, was maintained by every artifice that ingenuity could devise. Egypt has justly been denominated the Alma Mater of superstition, since we have every reason to suppose, that with much less wisdom and learning, every successive hierarchy has sought by similar means to retain an equal sway. In Egypt this influence must have been amazing, they held the first rank after the sovereign, whom they assisted in the performance of all his public duties, were present in all his councils, and directed his judgment from the lessons which were laid down for his conduct in the sacred records. All the judges and principal officers of state were also selected in the priesthood; their number must also have been very considerable, since we find them classed as chief priests or pontiffs, and inferior priests of various grades belonging to the sacred deities, prophets, judges, hierophants, magistrates, hierogrammats, or sacred scribes; Basilico grammats, or royal scribes; SphragistÆ, whose office it was to examine the victims, and to put a seal of approbation on them before the sacrifice. Hierostoli, who had access to the Adytum, to clothe the statues of the gods; doctors, embalmers; hierophori, or the bearers of sacred emblems; pterophori, or bearers of the fans carried before the gods; prÆcones, or pastophori, bearers of the holy images, and keepers of the sacred animals; hierolaotomi, or masons of the priestly order, besides innumerable painters, sculptors, sprinklers of holy water, and flappers to drive away the flies.

Kings were chiefly selected from the priestly order, and when they had been members of the military class, they were obliged to enter a sacerdotal college before they could ascend the throne; even then, they were only allowed to be attended by the children of families belonging to the priesthood.

If such was the influence of priests, that of the priestesses were not the less powerful. The Pellices, or Pallacides of Amun, filled offices of the highest importance, and not unfrequently queens and princesses prided themselves in performing their duties. The subdivision of the female attendants of the temples was also sanctified, and they were chiefly selected in the families of priests. If we are to believe the Grecian accounts, these holy women were not remarkable for their chastity; their indiscretions, however, were confined to their own circle. These assertions, have been by no means general, nor is it probable that a class of men who affected so much purity, and observed such a rigid abstinence to obtain the character of sanctity to which their power was due, would have exposed themselves to the results of such an improvident mode of living.My view of the origin of embalming both men and animals is borne out by another striking circumstance. The moment the practice of embalming the bodies of men and animals ceased in Egypt, pestilence appeared. At the period when Christianity was introduced into Egypt, the new religion had to encounter many obstacles in overcoming the obstinate prejudices of the ancient creed. During the four first centuries of its propagation, the ancient customs were persevered in; at last the cross triumphed and was enthroned, and the practice of embalming was abolished. In 356, St. Anthony, upon his death-bed, anathematised it as sacrilegious; his last injunction according to St. Athanasius, his historian, had such an effect, that an injudicious zeal prevailed in Rome, in Constantinople, and other large cities, and led to the practice of inhuming bodies in churches and cemeteries, notwithstanding the prohibition of the magistracy. While the dead were interred in towns, or their vicinity, in dwelling houses and gardens, the remains of animals were scattered abroad to become part of the soil, and thus this most dangerous innovation hurried on the development of the most dangerous of diseases. In 1542, under Justinian, Egypt was avoided as the focus of pestilence. It would be difficult to point out the exact period when the custom of embalming fell into disuse; but it had ceased to be practised at the time when pestilence burst forth over the land in all its irresistible horrors. The coincidence was too remarkable not to have been noticed.

It is certainly true that the plague had visited Egypt at former periods, recorded in holy writ, when we know not to what extent the preparation of mummies might have been carried, although we find that Jacob was embalmed by physicians; but when we consider the topography of Egypt presenting a vast plain exposed to a yearly inundation, its soil preserved for centuries from the admixture of animal substances, but of a sudden changed into a mass of corrupted bodies of men and animals, acted upon by heat and moisture,—when the inhumation of man was neglected, and the offals of beasts and reptiles accumulated in pestilential heaps,—we may easily imagine what a luxuriant field was submitted to the scythe of death.

The Egyptians had, no doubt, introduced the practice of embalming the dead from Ethiopia, a country abounding in various gums, which served them to preserve the remains of their relatives. The transparency of these substances had induced some travellers to assert that the bodies were imbedded in glass, like insects found in amber. De Pau, and many other writers, have exposed the absurdity of such a report, since it is more than probable that glass was scarcely, if at all, known amongst them. The Persians enveloped their dead in wax; and the Scythians sewed them up in skins.

While the foresight and wisdom of the Egyptian sacerdocy was thus distinguished by Hygienic institutions, their interests were not neglected; and the art of embalming, which they monopolized with every other branch of learning, tended not a little to add to their emoluments. Every dead body was their property. Herodotus tells us, that if the corpse of an Egyptian, or a stranger, was found in the Nile, or cast upon its banks, the priests alone had the power to touch it, and afford it a sepulture. This interesting, although not very veracious author, gives the following account of the process. There are in Egypt a particular class of people whose sole business consists in embalming bodies. When a corpse is shown them, they exhibit models of mummies depicted upon wood. These models are of three kinds, and vary in prices. The bargain being concluded, the embalmers commence their labours. The brains are first extracted through the nose with a crooked iron instrument; an incision is then made in the side of the body with a sharpened Ethiopian stone, through which the viscera are drawn. These are cleansed out, washed in palm wine, and then strewed with pulverized aromatic substances. The abdomen is stuffed with powdered myrrha, cinnamon, and other perfumes, but without incense. After these manipulations, the body is sewn up, and salted with natrum for seventy days. This period elapsed, the corpse is again washed, and swaddled up with rollers of linen, covered with gum, which the Egyptians commonly use instead of glue. The relations, after this operation, carry home the body, and place it in a wooden case resembling the human form; afterwards locking it up in chambers destined for the purpose, and placing it upright against the wall. This is the most expensive process. The next is more economical. Syringes are filled with an unctuous fluid, extracted from the cedar; this liquor is thrown into the body through an incision performed in the side, and is of such a nature that it gradually corrodes and destroys the viscera: after the body has been duly salted, nothing then remains but the bones and skin, which this substance does not affect.

Diodorus Siculus gives an account somewhat similar, but adds some curious particulars. The first class of funerals cost a silver talent; the second twenty minÆ; and the third scarcely any thing. The embalmers divide their labours into various offices. The first, or the scrivener, points out the part of the body on the left side where the incision is to be made. The next operator is the incisor, who uses for the purpose a sharp Ethiopian pebble; the viscera are then drawn out, with the exception of the heart and kidneys; and the body is then washed with palm wine and aromatics. The corpse is afterwards inuncted with the gum of cedar, and strewed with myrrha, cinnamon, and various spices. It is ultimately returned to the family of the deceased, in such preservation that the eyebrows and eyelids are uninjured, and the countenance preserves the character that distinguished it during life.

Porphyrius informs us that the embalmers, after having extracted the intestines, exposed them to the sun, putting up a prayer to that luminary, and declaring that if the deceased had ever been guilty of any act of gluttony, the intestines alone were guilty, and they were therefore cast into the Nile. Plutarch alludes to a similar ceremony. The incisor appears to have been considered a degraded being, for Diodorus tells us, that, after the operation, he was pursued by the relations of the defunct, and pelted with stones, as having polluted the remains of the dead.

These accounts of the ancients have been warmly impugned by modern antiquaries, who maintained that the various substances stated to have been made use of in the process of embalming, did not possess the qualities attributed to them,—especially the liquor called cedria, drawn from the cedar-tree. Rouyer, a member of the Egyptian commission of sciences and arts, corroborates in a great measure the accounts of ancient historians; and, in a very interesting paper on the subject, we find that the bones of the nose are destroyed in some mummies, but left intact in others,—a circumstance that would lead us to think that on such occasions the brain was left in the cranium. The opening in the side did not appear to have been sewn up, but the lips of the incision merely brought into apposition. He divides mummies into those in which tanno-balsamic substances had been introduced, and those that had merely been salted. The first species were found stuffed either with aromatic resinous substances, or asphaltum and pure bitumen. These resinous substances emitted no odour, but, when cast into the fire, a thick smoke arose, and a strong aroma became evident. The mummies thus preserved were light, dry, and fragile; preserved their teeth, their hair, and eyebrows. Some of them had been gilded all over; in others, the gold had only been applied to the face, the hands, and the feet, and other parts. This practice of gilding was so general, that it does not warrant the belief that it was only the remains of the illustrious and wealthy that were thus ornamented. These mummies, so long as they were kept in a dry place, were unaltered; but were soon decomposed, and emitted an unpleasant effluvium, when exposed to atmospheric moisture. The mummies thus prepared were of an olive colour, while those preserved with bituminous substances were of a reddish tinge; the integuments hard and shining, as if varnished. The features were not altered, and the cavities were filled with a black, hard, and inodorous resinous substance. The ingredients thus employed were similar to the bitumen of Judea; most of them were gilded.

Other mummies were found without any lateral incision, when, most probably, the intestines were drawn out through the rectum. These cavities were filled with the substance termed by historians Pissasphaltos. In the mummies merely cured with salt, when this ingredient is abundant, the features are obliterated, the surface of the body having been smeared with bitumen. These mummies which of course are the remains of the poorer classes, are the most common. They are heavy, hard, and black, and shed an unpleasant odour. They boast of no gilding; only the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, and the nails, had frequently been decorated with a red tinge; most probably by the application of the henne. These were the mummies which were sold by the Arabs in former times for medicinal purposes. For a further description of the mode of enveloping the bodies and the history of embalming, I must refer to the valuable labours of Mr. Pettigrew.[52] The process of embalming appears to have consisted simply in extracting the viscera, or destroying them by some corrosive injection; dissolving the mucous and fatty matter by the long application of natrum; and, finally, in desiccating the corpse by exposure to air or stoving.

Mummies have been also found in the Canary islands, where they were named by the Guanchi xaxos. They were light, dry, of a yellow colour, shedding a slight aroma, and carefully enclosed in goat-skins. The operation was also performed with a sharpened Ethiopian stone, called tabona. Humboldt found numerous mummies in Mexico, where desiccated bodies have not unfrequently been seen in the open air.

Certain soils appear to possess a preservative quality, without any apparent preparation having been made use of. In the catacombs of Bordeaux and Toulouse, these dried bodies may be seen, the hair and eyebrows still intact; but they are dark and shrivelled, and it does not appear that the contents of the cavities had been extracted or heeded, the process of desiccation being general. The miraculous conservation of bodies recorded by Calmet in his History of Vampires was nothing more than instances of a similar preservation.

Various experiments have proved that the progress of chemistry has been so great, that we might equal the Egyptians in the preparation of mummies, if ever such an absurd practice were introduced.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mummies formed one of the ordinary drugs found in Apothecaries shops, and as considerable sums were expended in its purchase as had been laid out upon the besoards of various rare animals. It became a lucrative branch of trade to the Jews. The demand not being easily supplied from the vigilance of the Egyptian Government, various frauds were introduced. So powerful were the supposed qualities of mummies, that Francis I. always carried a small parcel of it about him mixed with rhubarb. Lord Bacon tells us that mummy has great force in stanching of blood. Boyle assures us that it is one of the useful medicines commended and given for falls and bruises. The Arabs to this day make use of mummy powder mixed up with bitters. This preparation is called mantey, and is esteemed a sovereign remedy for bruises.