A 10-month-old baby who lived in Peru 6,420 years ago, a German nobleman dead since 1648, an 18th-century Hungarian family, Egyptian animal mummies and all such treasures of mummies.
In July, 2010 Mummies of the World, opened an exhibition at the California Science Centre in Los Angeles. The exhibition puts on display an incredible array of 45 mummies and 95 artifacts from 15 museums across Asia, Oceania, South America, Europe and ancient Egypt, some dating as far back as 6,500 years. Mummies of the World is the largest travelling exhibition of mummies ever assembled.
In 2004, staff members of Reiss-Engelhorn
Museums in Mannheim, Germany found a treasure trove they were not expecting—20 human mummies and many precious artifacts, forgotten in a corner of an underground vault.
Where had the mummies come from? And why had they been forgotten?
Researchers discovered that the collection of mummies found in the vault had been purchased by the museum in 1917 and had been assumed to be lost during the chaos and destruction of World War II.
What is a Mummy?
A Mummy is the dead body of an animal or a human that has been preserved after death so that it does not decompose. To be considered as a mummy, the body must keep some of its soft tissue, such as hair, skin or muscles. The word 'mummy' is generally believed to derive from a Persian word, mummiya, which means 'bitumen', used to describe the blackened state of ancient Egyptian bodies.
Mummification takes place when the process of decay is blocked, generally from a lack of moisture or oxygen. This can happen as a natural process or as an artificial process. Natural mummies are preserved by the environment in which they died. Environments that are warm and dry, such as a desert or attic, allow bodies to dry out naturally. Environments that are cold and dry also allow bodies to dry out naturally. Artificial mummies occur when the natural process of decay is blocked intentionally or artificially by some procedure usually involving human assistance.
Mummies of humans and other animals have been found on every continent of the world, both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts to preserve the dead. There are more than 1000 mummies in dry Xinjiang China. Over one million animal mummies have been found in Egypt, many of which are cats.
In fiction mummies were popularized by films and other mass media. One of the earliest appearances was The Jewel of Seven Stars, by Bram Stoker, first published in 1903.There are various films representing mummies such as the 1932 movie The Mummy starring Boris Karloff to the current big-budget re-makes of recent years.
Exhibiting Interesting Mummies
The treasures presented in Mummies of the World exhibition include some very interesting mummies.
The Detmold Child is a Peruvian child mummy in a remarkable state of preservation, radiocarbon dated to 4504 – 4457 B.C.
Baron von Holtz is a 17th century nobleman believed to have died in Sommersdorf, Germany during the Thirty Year’s War (1618 – 1648). He was discovered in the family crypt of the von Crailsheim family’s late 14th century castle, still wearing his top boots.
The Orlovits family was part of a group of 18th century mummies discovered in a long-forgotten crypt in Vac, Hungary in 1994. Michael and Veronica Orlovits and their son, Johannes, were among those preserved by the cool, dry air and oil from the pine boards used to build their coffins.
Egyptian animal mummies are elaborately wrapped in painted linen bandaging, holding fascinating clues to life and death in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian cat mummies in this exhibition date to the Ptolemaic period and show how Egyptian cats were ritually embalmed in a lengthy process using salt and various resins.
Source: Mummies of the World
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