History of Embalming. Gannal Jean-Nicolas
expenses, they extended it at first on a stone table; an operator then made an opening in the lower part of the belly with a sharpened flint, wrought into the form of a knife and called tabona; the intestines were withdrawn, which other operators afterwards washed and cleaned; they also washed the rest of the body, and particularly the delicate parts, as the eyes, interior of the mouth, the ears, and the nails, with fresh water saturated with salt. They filled the large cavities with aromatic plants; they then exposed the body to the hottest sun, or placed it in stoves, if the sun was not hot enough. During the exposition, they frequently endued the body with an ointment, composed of goats’ grease, powder of odoriferous plants, pine bark, resin, tar, ponce stone, and other absorbing materials. Feuille thinks that these unctions were also made with a composition of butter, and desiccative and balsamic substances, among which are mentioned the resin of larch, and the leaves of pomegranate, which never possessed the property of preserving bodies.
“On the fifteenth day the embalming should be completely terminated; the mummy should be dry and light; the relatives send for it and establish the most magnificent obsequies in their power. They sew up the body in several folds of the skin, which they had prepared when living, and they bind it with straps, retained by running knots. The kings and the grandees were besides, placed in a case or coffin of a single piece, and hollowed out of the trunk of the juniper tree, the wood of which was held as incorruptible. They then finally, carried the xaxos, thus sown and encased, to inaccessible grottoes consecrated to this purpose.
“Another less expensive mode of preserving the dead, consisted in drying them in the sun, after having introduced into the belly a corrosive liquor: this liquor eats into the interior parts, where the sun does not act sufficiently to prevent their corruption. Like the other xaxos, the relatives sowed them in skins and carried them to the grottoes.
“These mummies, such as they are found at the present day, are dry and light; many have perfectly preserved their hair and beard, the nails are often wanting; the features of the face are distinct, but shrunken; the abdomen is contracted. In some, there exists no mark of incision, in others are observed the trace of a rather large opening on the flank. The xaxos are of a tanned colour, with generally an agreeable odour; exposed to the air, out of the sacks of goat skin, which are admirably preserved, they fall by degrees into dust; they are punctured in many places; surrounded by the chrysalides of flies, proceeding probably from maggots, deposited upon the body during its preparation: these larvæ and chrysalides, which could not be reproduced, are preserved whole and healthy like the mummies.
“The Chevalier Scory says, that these mummies are two thousand years old: it is difficult to determine how long they have been preserved; but we shall see in the sequel that it has been certainly more than two thousand years since the Guanches embalmed. I willingly believe that, in the corrosive composition which they employed in the second kind of embalming, and probably in all cases, the Guanches made use of the juice of the spurge; they doubtless employed the species proper to their climate, which is acrid and milky; I have recognised whole pieces in the chest of a mummy, in which, nevertheless, there existed no traces of an incision. Leaves, also, it is said, have been taken from the body in a good state of preservation, and have been recognised as those of the laurel. During the exposure of the body to the sun, they extend the arms of the men along the side of the trunk, and for the most part crossing those of the women before the lower part of the abdomen. From time to time new catacombs are discovered in the Canary islands. In 1758, they found one at Palma; but the mummies were either very old, or badly embalmed, they soon fell into powder. At Fer, there was found on the tables where the xaxos had laid, the furniture which the deceased had used during life. In this island they wall up these caverns, to prevent them being used as retreats for birds of prey and for crows.
“At the Canaries, they do not limit themselves always to placing the mummies in grottoes; they elevated special tombs to certain distinguished dead. These privileged dead, dressed in their garment, called tamareo, were placed upon elevated planks of pine wood, with the head turned towards the north; they afterwards constructed above, a monument of hard stone, pyramidal in form, and often very high. Many catacombs are known to exist in Teneriffe; the most celebrated is that of Baranco de Herque, between Arico and Guimar, in the Abona country: it was discovered during the time that Clarijo wrote his Noticias. He states that they there met with more than a thousand mummies, whilst in other cases only three or four hundred had been found at a time. From hence they brought the xaxos, which are in the cabinet of the King of Spain, and the two which M. de Chastenet-Puysegur sent in 1776, to the Garden of Plants: one of them unfortunately wants the feet.”
We abstain from all reflection on the recital which precedes. Their analogy to the Egyptian process will occur of itself to the mind of the reader, in the description which follows. Nevertheless, we ought to indicate a fact observed of two Guanch mummies; a fact omitted in the preceding description.
M. Jouannet, a modest and laborious investigator, has proved, that two Guanch mummies that were in his possession, had the eyes, nose, and mouth, filled with bitumen, like some of the Egyptian mummies. The skins which enveloped them were carefully closed, and nothing indicated that the bitumen was an addition posterior to embalming.
CHAPTER IV.
EMBALMING AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS
Since the ignorance we are in, relative to the language of this great nation, places it out of our power to know, of ourselves, the causes and processes for the preservation of dead bodies, let us follow the recital of ancient authors, let us endeavour to detect, not by the imagination, but by positive facts, by the study of invariable exterior conditions, the different data of the question of embalming among the Egyptians.
In the first place, if we make allowance for all that the successive perfection of the arts, luxury, or the love of distinction could add to simple preservation, we shall arrive, with Rouelle, to this conclusion, that the work of embalming is reduced to two essential parts: first, the drying of the body, that is to say, removing the fluids and grease which they contain; secondly, to protect the body thus prepared, from external humidity and contact of the air. We have already seen all the aid which they derived from their climate to fulfil the first condition: a detailed description will teach us what their industry enabled them to add to it. As to the second, the nature of their caverns powerfully contributed.
These vast cavities, says Pelletan, sheltered from the inundations of the Nile, have, without doubt, originally furnished the materials for the monuments of Thebes, and the architects of the day thus hollowed out the tombs of families in elevating their palaces. Their whole surface, from the entrance, even to the deepest recesses of these dark excavations, are covered with sepultures and fresco paintings. Each framed subject forms so many little pictures which touch each other, and the figures of which are not more than two or three inches in height, so that the whole extent of these double walls, the development of which is incalculable, has been the object of minute labour. The sculptures are in bas-relief, and covered with equable tints, but lively, and in very good preservation. The points of rock unconnected with the work, have been covered with a composition perfectly solid, and so durable, that, as yet, no other degradation is observable, than that produced by the efforts of some travellers to carry off fragments of it. Perspective is always wanting in these pictures; the bodies are viewed in full, the faces in profile; but the design is pure and the proportions just; we find nothing to indicate ignorance in the artist; which presumes for the Egyptians, if not great perfection in the arts, at least a great popularity in their practice. The subject of these paintings are domestic scenes, and generally followed by a funeral procession; from whence it may be inferred, that they refer to the life of the man enclosed in each of the lateral niches. The temperature of the caverns is 20° R.
It appeared to us convenient thus to give a summary of the conditions of drying, and of the ulterior preservation, before presenting descriptions which have been more or less accurately transmitted to us, of the part that man has had in this operation.
Herodotus, Diodorus Sicculus, and Porphyrus, who have written with the greatest detail on the funerals of the Egyptians, will afford us the first instructions.
Herodotus. “Mourning and funerals are conducted after this manner: when a man of consideration dies, all the women of his house (oiketes) cover the head and even the face with mud;