This was not possible prior to the Congress due to the unique and highly specialized techniques required to gather such data. The information presented at the meeting triggered a new surge of interest in the subject, with one of the major results being the integration of biomedical and bioarchaeological information on mummies with existing databases. More than 300 scientists attended the Congress to share nearly 100 years of collected data on mummies. In 1992, the First World Congress on Mummy Studies was held in Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Pathological study of mummies saw varying levels of popularity throughout the 20th century. Lucas also made significant contributions to the analysis of Tutankhamun in 1922. British chemist Alfred Lucas applied chemical analyses to Egyptian mummies during this same period, which returned many results about the types of substances used in embalming. The first X-ray of a mummy came in 1903, when professors Grafton Elliot Smith and Howard Carter used the only X-ray machine in Cairo at the time to examine the mummified body of Thutmose IV. ![]() The first modern scientific examinations of mummies began in 1901, conducted by professors at the English-language Government School of Medicine in Cairo, Egypt. Prior to this, many rediscovered mummies were sold as curiosities or for use in pseudoscientific novelties such as mummia. While interest in the study of mummies dates as far back as Ptolemaic Greece, most structured scientific study began at the beginning of the 20th century. History of mummy studies Howard Carter examining the innermost coffin of Tutankhamun A 550-year-old Peruvian child mummy being prepared for a CT scan Wasps of the genus Aleiodes are known as "mummy wasps" because they wrap their caterpillar prey as "mummies". Also applied to the frozen carcase of an animal imbedded in prehistoric snow". However, Chamber's Cyclopædia and the Victorian zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland define a mummy as follows: "A human or animal body desiccated by exposure to sun or air. The OED defines a mummy as "the body of a human being or animal embalmed (according to the ancient Egyptian or some analogous method) as a preparation for burial", citing sources from 1615 AD onward. The Medieval English term "mummy" was defined as "medical preparation of the substance of mummies", rather than the entire corpse, with Richard Hakluyt in 1599 AD complaining that "these dead bodies are the Mummy which the Phisistians and Apothecaries doe against our willes make us to swallow". The meaning of "corpse preserved by desiccation" developed post-medievally. This word was borrowed from Persian where it meant asphalt, and is derived from the word mūm meaning wax. The English word mummy is derived from medieval Latin Mumia, a borrowing of the medieval Arabic word mūmiya (مومياء) which meant an embalmed corpse, as well as the bituminous embalming substance. The oldest known naturally mummified human corpse is a severed head dated as 6,000 years old, found in 1936 AD at the site named Inca Cueva No. Before this discovery, the oldest known deliberate mummy was a child, one of the Chinchorro mummies found in the Camarones Valley, Chile, which dates around 5050 BC. ![]() The Spirit Cave mummies of Fallon, Nevada, in North America were accurately dated at more than 9,400 years old. In addition to the mummies of ancient Egypt, deliberate mummification was a feature of several ancient cultures in areas of America and Asia with very dry climates. Many of the Egyptian animal mummies are sacred ibis, and radiocarbon dating suggests the Egyptian ibis mummies that have been analyzed were from a time frame that falls between approximately 450 and 250 BC. Over one million animal mummies have been found in Egypt, many of which are cats. ![]() Mummies of humans and animals have been found on every continent, both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts. Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least the early 17th century. For other uses, see Mummy (disambiguation).Ī mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. For the type of monster, see Mummy (undead). This article is about the preserved person or animal.
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