New research suggests the history of mummification may have started in ancient Egypt 1,500 years earlier than researchers previously suspected.
Previous evidence suggested that between 4500 B.C. and 3100 B.C Egyptian mummification relied mainly on the drying agents of the hot, dry desert sand. Scientists believed the use of resins on the mummification process was not seen until 2200 BC and did not become prevalent until between 2000 and 1600 BC, PLOS reported.
Researchers from the University of York, Macquarie University, and University of Oxford studied funerary textiles from bodies in tombs taken from one of the oldest-known ancient Egyptian cemeteries, active between 4500 B.C. - 3350 B.C. The research team found the presence of complex embalming agents in the linen wrappings. Through a biochemical analysis the team identified a pine resin, a plant gum sugar, plant oil, and animal fat in the wrappings.
These results suggest embalming agents may have been used up to a millennium earlier than was previously estimated. The agents identified are made up of the same proportions of the same natural products that were used at the zenith of Pharaonic mummification about 3,000 years later.
"The antibacterial properties of some of these ingredients and the [localized] soft-tissue preservation that they would have afforded lead us to conclude that these represent the very beginnings of experimentation that would evolve into the mummification practice of the Pharaonic period," Stephen Buckley from University of York said.
"These resinous recipes applied to the prehistoric linen wrapped bodies contained antibacterial agents, used in the same proportions employed by the Egyptian embalmers when their skill was at its peak, some 2500-3000 years later " he added.
The findings were published on August 13, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
