Ice mummies like Kwäday Dan Ts’inchì and Ötzi are rare treasures which can tell us as much about the past as a history book can. The mummies could form, because of the combination of cold temperatures, ice and dehydration. With the help of methods like isotope analysis and carbon dating, researchers were able to make the mummies talk. Especially Ötzi has completely changed the way archaeologists see the stone ages.
Introduction
Being messengers from the past, mummies have always fascinated people all over the world. However, the word mummy has not always meant what it means today. In his book The Scientific Study of Mummies, Arthur Aufderheide reconstructs the origins of the word mummy . He explains that in the first centuries A.D., natural asphalt was primarily used for medical purposes. Large amounts from this asphalt came from Iraq, where it was called múmyá . Then, around the thirteenth century, the only known sources of asphalt of this time started to run out. Therefore, doctors started looking for an alternative. Eventually, they started using the black resin found in ancient Egyptian mummies. Because this black resin looked similar to natural asphalt, the name múmyá was applied to this resin well. Later, all of the mummies soft tissue was used as medicine and the name múmyá was eventually used to describe the entire mummy (Aufderheide 2003:1).
Today, a mummy is defined as a physically preserved corpse or tissue that resembles its living morphology but resists further decay for a prolonged postmortem interval (2003:41). Egyptian mummies are probably the most famous, but not the only existing mummies. Another group of mummies are ice mummies that form in freezing conditions. Ice mummies can be found all over the world and can be mummified intentionally or unintentionally. A glacier in the Alps, for example, protected a man s body for 5000 years from the elements. On the other side of the world, in the Andes, scientists, adventurers and grave robbers discovered centuries-old the frozen bodies of Inca children. Whereas the Inca children were brought up to the mountain intentionally as a sacrifice, Ötzi s body mummified completely unintentionally. The same is true for a 500 year old mummy found in a Canadian glacier. Ice mummies have also been found in Siberia and Greenland.
Like other types of mummies, ice mummies are messengers of the past and much about the past can be learned when those mummies are studied.
History of the Study of Mummies
When Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798 he did not only take soldiers with him, but also a group of scholars. This group of scholars studied and recorded many aspects of Egyptian culture, geography and history and later published their findings. Gradually the general Western European public became interested in Egypt, its history and also its famous mummies (Aufderheide 2003:9).
Soon, hucksters started to organize mummy unrollings for a paying public (Aufderheide 2003:9). Aufderheide s research shows that it was mainly due to the work of nineteenth century scientists Dr. Thomas Pettigrew, John Davidson and Samuel George Johnson that these spectacles became more scientific over time. John Davidson was the first person to accurately record all of his findings during the process of unrolling a mummy. Dr. Pettigrew was a doctor of anatomy who unrolled mummies in front of physicians only after a thorough introduction to Egyptology. American anthropologist Samuel George Morton, in contrast, was not interested in the entire mummy, but studies only their crania. Some of the mummies were directly imported from Egypt, but many others were actually found in European pharmacies (Aufderheide 2003:9-10).
The organized study of mummies developed in British-ruled Egypt with the establishment of the Cairo School of Medicine in the early twentieth century (Cockburn 1980:2). British and Egyptian scholars there concentrated on Egyptian mummies, but developed techniques which could later be used to study other mummies as well. Elliot Smith, for example, developed techniques of examining a mummy s soft tissue and he was also the first scientist to X-ray mummies (Cockburn 1980:2). Other scientists working at Cairo s medical school developed numerous additional techniques of studying mummies (Cockburn1980:1-2).
Aufderheide explains that there has been another, very recent shift in the study of mummies. Whereas mummy studies were primarily case-oriented and anectdotal at the beginning of the twentieth century, this changed towards the end of the twentieth century and scientists started to shift more towards organized and comprehensive studies (Aufderheide 2005:88).
Process of Mummification
Mummification can have natural causes, but it can also occur deliberately (Cockburn 1980:6). The processes that are used in deliberate mummification are usually the same processes that cause natural mummification. What all of these types of mummification have in common is that the soft-tissue of a body did not decompose.
Usually, decomposition will set in as soon as four minutes after death (Vass 2001:190). During the decomposition process, enzymes break down the carbohydrates, the fats, as well as the protein molecules that compose the soft tissue of a body. The enzymes that start the decomposition process are present in every human being. However, as long as a person is alive, these enzymes are regulated and they are only activated when it is necessary for a cell s well-being (Aufderheide 2003:42).
Vass explains in his article Beyond the grave understanding human decomposition that since a person stops breathing at death, the body is not supplied with oxygen any more. Consequently, the carbon dioxide level in the blood increases relative to the oxygen level, the pH decreases and waste material is accumulated in the cells. This process poisons the cells and enzymes, which are not regulated by the body any more, start dissolving the cell (Vass 2001:190).
Aufderheide in order to dissolve the cells, the enzymes break up the large molecules that compose the cells. The product of this process of breaking down molecules are small molecules, that are often water soluble or are even gaseous. The body s soft tissue, therefore, literally starts to turn into liquid and gas. The small molecules will either react with other elements in their environment or be eaten by bacteria, fungi, insects or other organisms. While eating , the bacteria will additionally produce more enzymes, which will accelerate the decay (Aufderheide 2003:42).
There is a variety of factors that can slow down or stop the decaying-process. Most of the time, several different factors will work together. Because most enzymes need water to operate, the lack of water is one of the things that can slowdown the decay (Aufderheide 2003:42). The first prehistoric Egyptian mummies, for example, are natural mummies (Smithonian). Hundreds of bodies were naturally preserved, after they were buried in Egypt s dry desert sand (Cockburn 1980:3).
Closely related to the problem of water is the process of desiccation that results from extreme dehydration of a body. Quingley describes that the desiccation process generally starts in parts of the body that are naturally relatively dry. When desiccated, a body s tissue turns brown, shrinks, loses its elasticity and wrinkles. As a result, the skin will look like parchment that is fit tightly around the body s skeleton (Quingley 1998:17).
A body s immersion in water or very moist conditions can also cause mummification. In this case, a body s fatty tissue will turn into a soap-like substance called adipocere . The water is necessary, because adipocere forms through the hydrolysis of the body s fatty acids (Quigley 1998:22). Because adipocere is a fatty acid, the pH level of the body will drop which prevents or delays further decomposition (Quigley 1998:22).
Acidity in general plays a role in the mummification process. The greater an enzymes environment s pH factor differs from an enzymes optimum pH, the less active an enzyme will be (Aufderheide 2003:43). One of the reasons the peat bog bodies of Northern Europe were preserved is the acidity of the water surrounding them. The bodies are so well preserved that one could even take the fingerprints of some of the bodies.
There are several additional factors, besides pH factor and water, which can lead to the mummification of a corpse. Substances like alcohol, for instance, can alter molecular structures so far that the enzymes cannot break it down anymore (Aufderheide 2003:43).
Temperature can also have an effect on the decay process. The enzymes that break down a body s soft tissue after death cannot work very effectively in cold conditions (Kudalis 2002:13). In freezing conditions, bodies can turn into ice mummies. However, these mummies will only be preserved as long as they are frozen (Quigley 1998:17).
Kudalis lists two important conditions that must be present in order for an ice mummy to form. First of all, the temperature around the body should not rise above 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so the body stays frozen. Secondly, the body needs to be protected from certain weather conditions as well as different animals that could harm it (Kudalis 2002:13). These conditions exist in great heights for example or when a body is enclosed in a glacier. The famous Ötzi mummy, for example, was protected by a glacier for over 5000 years.
The Famous Ice Mummy Ötzi
Modern murder mysteries are not any more gripping than the story of Ötzi . In the summer of 1991, two hikers decided to leave their path in the Italian Alps. When they passed a glacier, the hikers made a startling discovery 3210m above sea level: a frozen body. A day later, an Austrian gendarme and a mountain refuge keeper tried to remove the body from the ice using a pneumatic jackhammer. Doing so, the men damaged the mummy s hip. Because of bad weather, the recovery had to be postponed. When the body was finally recovered three days later, there was still no archaeologist present. Using ice picks and ski poles, the recovery team damaged the body even more. Once the first archaeologist Konrad Schindler finally had a chance to see the body, it was almost completely thawed and gave off the distinct smell of a dead body. Looking at the artifacts and the mummy the archaeologist quickly realized that the body in front of him had to be several thousand years old.
[...]
-
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X.