Skywizard
16th August 2014, 03:35
http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/069/238/original/flax-closeup.jpg?1407951198
This resin-saturated flax yarn came from a late Neolithic burial wrapping, found at a grave in Upper Egypt. The sample is now kept at the Bolton Museum in England.
Three thousand years before King Tut's body was brushed with embalming oils and wrapped in linen to rest in a gold-filled tomb, prehistoric Egyptians seeking immortality may have experimented with their own recipes to preserve the dead for the afterlife.
Scientists previously thought that mummy making began in Egypt around 2600 B.C., during the era when the pyramids of Giza were built, known as the Old Kingdom. But now scientists say they have found traces of complex embalming agents on much older bits of burial shrouds that had been sitting in a museum for nearly 100 years after they were dug up along the Nile Valley.
The newly examined linens were peeled from bodies buried at the Egyptian sites known as Badari and Mostagedda during the Late Neolithic and Predynastic periods, between 4500 B.C. and 3100 B.C. Archaeologists first found these pit graves during a British expedition to the region in the 1920s, and researchers had previously assumed that the hot, dry desert sand naturally mummified any well-preserved corpses from this era.
The harsh environment definitely encouraged preservation, and may have even inspired mummification practices in the first place. But the new research, detailed in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests Egyptians at that time were cooking up embalming mixtures made from animal fats, as well as tree resins and plant extracts that contained powerful antibacterial elements.
Read Full Story: http://www.livescience.com/47335-oldest-egyptian-mummy-making.html
peace...
This resin-saturated flax yarn came from a late Neolithic burial wrapping, found at a grave in Upper Egypt. The sample is now kept at the Bolton Museum in England.
Three thousand years before King Tut's body was brushed with embalming oils and wrapped in linen to rest in a gold-filled tomb, prehistoric Egyptians seeking immortality may have experimented with their own recipes to preserve the dead for the afterlife.
Scientists previously thought that mummy making began in Egypt around 2600 B.C., during the era when the pyramids of Giza were built, known as the Old Kingdom. But now scientists say they have found traces of complex embalming agents on much older bits of burial shrouds that had been sitting in a museum for nearly 100 years after they were dug up along the Nile Valley.
The newly examined linens were peeled from bodies buried at the Egyptian sites known as Badari and Mostagedda during the Late Neolithic and Predynastic periods, between 4500 B.C. and 3100 B.C. Archaeologists first found these pit graves during a British expedition to the region in the 1920s, and researchers had previously assumed that the hot, dry desert sand naturally mummified any well-preserved corpses from this era.
The harsh environment definitely encouraged preservation, and may have even inspired mummification practices in the first place. But the new research, detailed in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests Egyptians at that time were cooking up embalming mixtures made from animal fats, as well as tree resins and plant extracts that contained powerful antibacterial elements.
Read Full Story: http://www.livescience.com/47335-oldest-egyptian-mummy-making.html
peace...