Egyptian mummification older than was thought

I often wonder just how far back in the past ancient technology and knowledge was really invented. The more we dig deeper the more our knowledge grows.

(Reuters) - It has long been known that the practice of mummification of the dead in ancient Egypt - fundamental to that civilization's belief in eternal life - was old, but only now are researchers unwrapping the mystery of just how long ago it began.

Researchers on Wednesday said a form of mummification was being carried out there more than six thousand years ago, much earlier than previously thought. They said embalming substances contained in funerary textiles from the oldest-known Egyptian cemeteries showed mummy-making from as early as about 4300 BC.

The embalming agents were infused into the linen used to wrap the corpse to provide an antibacterial and protective barrier. It was not as elaborate as the process used much later on the bodies of powerful pharaohs and other elites as well as many ordinary Egyptians, but came more than 1,500 years earlier than Egyptian mummification had been thought to have started.

uk.reuters.com...

a reply to: EnigmaAgent

Good find! I'm a firm believer that the current view of "modern-civilization" history is way too short-sighted, and that the history of both culture and technology will continue to be pushed further and further back. I'll just be interested to know if there ever will be found the so-called beginning, or if we'll find evidence of an abrupt ending and then slow rebuliding. The thought that humanity and its technology exists in a recurring cycle is really intriguing theory to me, considering the types of myths and stories of bygone civilizations and whatnot.

Anyhoo, nice post. S+F

a reply to: EnigmaAgent

I often wonder just how far back in the past ancient technology and knowledge was really invented. The more we dig deeper the more our knowledge grows.

Exactly!

With Egyptian architecture we see that chamber-burials became mastabas that developed into something like this and then these.

The techniques behind mummification would likewise start off with a manky corpse being experimentally preserved and probably failing. They'd follow a learning curve of increasing complexity and more success until it peaked with the familiar mummies we see in the school-books and on websites.

Still...the horror! Can you imagine working with corpses before the invention of morgue cooler-cabinets in the heat of North Africa?

And this is only whats been found! For every find there must be millions that have been lost.

Its highly probable there's much more and going even further back, we just need to find it.

Thanks for posting op.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Unless they were use to gutted and sun dried corpses

a reply to: Hanslune

My imagination isn't conditioned to feel comfortable with that idea.

Then again, the overall olfactory experience of those guys was probably extreme by modern standards. Comparable, perhaps, to a trash-can of bad meat and old sweatpants mixed in with halitosis.