MUMMIES & their mysteries  By Charlotte Wilcox

Student Review by Gavin

            What is a mummy? The dead body of an animal or human that does not decay after dying is a mummy. Mummies are different from fossils and skeletons.

 Mummies have been found on every continent.  Egyptian mummies have been discovered deep inside pyramids. The Incan empire believed in life after death and that every one deserved to be mummified, so millions of mummies remain in baskets all along the west coast of South America. The flint Mammoth cave is located in the state of Kentucky where there is a message written on the cave wall left by a mummy looters. The four corners region of the U.S. is where ranchers found the first native basket makers mummy in 1889. Mummies have even been found preserved in the ice of the South Pole, northern Canada, Alaska and the Alps. These are the remains of sailors and explorers, hikers and nomads from ranging up to 2500 years ago. Scientists have discovered that China has some of the best preserved mummies in the world.    The mummies were wrapped in 20 layers of silk cloth, placed in 7 nested coffins, and surrounded by 5 tons of charcoal and 3 feet of clay.

Buddhist priests were known to go on a starvation diet for 3 years, and when he died his body would be embalmed, painted with ink or dye and placed in a barrel. But that’s not all, a huge number of mummies have been found in European Bogs. If you are on a quest to find a mummy, Denmark or Northern Germany are the places to go, more mummies are found there than anywhere else in the world. Today you can usually see mummies on display in museums or private homes in many places around the world.

I think mummification is kind of sad because of how the people died and what has been done to their bodies. The steps to making a mummy are rather strange to me.