Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Scientists from universities in Switzerland and Greece have successfully used ancient Egyptian mummification techniques on tissue from donated human cadaver tissue in order to see first-hand what these processes looked like.
As CNET explained in a recent article, the process was completed by researchers in a lab at the University of Zurich, and the results have been published in The Anatomical Record. The tissue used in the experiment had been donated to science, and it came from a woman who had died less than 24 hours prior to the start of the experiment.
The researchers amputated her legs, telling LiveScience that using the entire body would have been too complicated, as they would have had to remove the intestines and other organs before they could proceed. First, they attempted to bake one leg in an oven to mimic the heat and arid conditions found in Egypt, but this approach was abandoned due to lack of progress.
Using a salt-solution to remove water proved successful
Next, they took the other leg and placed it in a salt-solution to prevent it from decaying before it could be entombed. It was placed underneath a ventilation hood and monitored using a variety of advanced microscopy and imaging techniques for 208 days. After this time, the researchers said that the process had been a success and that the skin and muscle tissue were well preserved.
Not only did the removal of water by the salt-solution prevent decomposition, it also appeared to prevent the bacterial and fungal growth that could have resulted in rot. They did report finding a strain of Enterococcus bacteria, E. cecorum, on the limb, according to LiveScience. This strain had only ever been clinically presented on four occasions, and the team believes that it would have been present on the tissue prior to the start of the experiment.
So why attempt something like this? Christina Papageorgopoulou, a physical anthropologist at the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece and one of the researchers, explained to the website that she “wanted to have an evidence-based methodology” to understand what the mummification process looked like. “The only way you can do this is by [doing] the experiment yourself.”
The results, LiveScience said, demonstrate the effectiveness of the embalming methods used by the ancient Egyptians, and offer a first-hand look at exactly how the process worked. The study found that temperature, acidity, and humidity all played essential roles in the speed of the process, and that using salts to remove water from tissue helped keep the body from decomposing.
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