Mummies [antikvár]

introduction E gyptian mummies have an enduring fascination. The Walevolent mummy of the 1930s 'horror film' may have little in common with the genuine article, yet over the centuries the treatment of ancient mummies has often been strange and grotesque: they have been ground to powder for use as medicaments, burnt as locomotive fuel, turned into wrapping paper, and 'unrolled' at social gatherings to satisfy the morbid curiosity of aristocratic travellers. Fortunately, since 1900 their value as a source of data about past populations has been generally recognised, and the ever-increasing arsenal of sophisticated imaging and analytical techniques has vastly increased their potential for broadening our understanding of the state of health, nutrition, life expectancy, diseases and ethnic affinities of the ancient inhabitants of the Nile Valley. It was a fundamental tenet of ancient Egyptian religious belief that death was not the end of human existence. Rather,