The Ancient Egyptians believed that without a physical home on Earth their spirits would not survive in the afterlife. It was this desire for eternal life that drove the Egyptians to mummify the dead, providing the spirit with a permanent home.

Or at least that is what experts believe because, according to the Egyptologist Dr Aidan Dodson, of the University of Bristol, the Egyptians never bothered telling posterity what they were up to.

Some of the best descriptions of the process came from visiting Romans and Greeks. They came from cultures where corpses were sacrosanct and doctors would not have learnt anatomy by dissecting human cadavers.

These visitors were intrigued by the way the Egyptians cut up, handled and processed their dead. This appears to have led to the idea that Egyptians had an advanced understanding of human anatomy and hence medicine. This is mostly myth, albeit a persistent one.

The few Egyptian medical texts that survive give details of medicines and procedures applied to the sick but with no reference to an understanding of anatomy.

They could cope with the common ailments of the region but there is no record of invasive surgery, according to Dr John Taylor, assistant keeper at the department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum. This is probably because of the fact that, despite the practice of mummification, the body was seen as sacred and not to be damaged.

The one exception, Dodson says, is the removal of fragments of damaged skull to relieve pressure on the brain. This could be a byproduct of mummification but, as with many things Egyptian, this is highly speculative.

Even if they did not practise surgery, there is the question of whether their mummification rituals taught them about the functions of the different organs.

Again the information on this is scant but there are some clues. The brain was regarded as insignificant, with the heart being seen as the seat of intelligence. Which is why it remains in place in the mummy rather than being preserved separately like other organs.

It seems obvious today that anatomy and medicine are intrinsically linked but in Ancient Egypt those who practised these different arts had little interaction.

Mummification was a spiritual process, taking a ceremonial 70 days and probably originally carried out by priests. There were many rituals surrounding it and it was aimed at the afterlife, not daily existence.

As society became richer and demand for mummification increased, so an artisan clan of embalmers emerged. They appeared to have a slightly ambiguous role in society, essential as part of transition into the afterlife but you would not want your children to become one. The role of doctors on the other hand was to treat the living and it is unlikely that the two groups would have sat down to discuss the inner workings of the human body.

It is not exactly clear how mummification first arose but it seems likely that it was a result of noticing how bodies were preserved naturally by burial in hot sand. The process was improved gradually but it was expensive, only performed on those of significance and status.

One of the pinnacles of the art is the tomb of Tutankhamum. But in the later periods of Ancient Egypt increased prosperity meant that almost everybody underwent some form of mummification. As a result, thousands of mummies have been unearthed, providing a wealth of information about the people of that time.

Many unanswered questions remain. What happened during epidemics or to soldiers killed on the battlefield?

Perhaps ironically, modern medical technology may provide those answers, shedding light on the distant past.

Mummies unwrapped

The first step of mummification was to remove the soft tissues that would decay most rapidly in the Egyptian heat.

The brain was extracted by forcing rods up through the nose into the skull and wiggling them around to break up the tissue. Twenty-four hours later the brain would have liquefied and was poured away leaving the empty skull to be filled with bandages or resin.

Meanwhile, the intestines, stomach, liver and lungs were removed via incisions in the abdomen and up into the chest. These organs were salted and preserved separately before being put in canopic containers in the tomb. The heart was always left in place even if it was sometimes temporarily removed for further preservation. The body was then packed around with natron, a naturally occurring blend of sodium salts, to draw out the moisture, just like salting fish or meat.

Once totally desiccated the body cavity was packed with cloth, sawdust or other materials, the skin anointed with oils and resins to make it look more lifelike. In later periods there were even attempts to bulk out the face to smooth out the dried, pinched, flesh.

The body was then wrapped in linen, often with amulets or tokens included at significant points. A final addition of resin to bind the wrappings added a last preserving touch.

The finished mummy remains intact for thousands of years. Only damp, tomb robbers and archaeologists pose any threat to the final resting place of the dead person’s spirit.

Body of information

The last significant mummy unwrapping in the UK was in Bristol in 1976. The mummy had started to deteriorate in the hot weather so it was a choice of unwrap it or lose it.

Today CAT scanning has replaced physical unwrapping and produces more information more quickly and without damaging the artefact. It takes a couple of minutes for a CAT scanner – a 3D X-ray machine – to image a whole body. The picture appears before the archaeologists eyes, although the analysis can take years. One big plus is that information is stored digitally, allowing archaeologists to send it across the world.

Scanning does not just locate objects but also helps to identify them, distinguishing metal from bone or cloth and so on. This is a boon for those interested in the ritual meaning of the amulets and tokens often included in the wrappings. The scanner can also peer inside bones, giving clues to diseases suffered in life.

John Taylor believes that rapid scanning of large numbers of mummies could help us to learn more about the health, life span and nutrition of the Egyptians.

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