10 mummy facts to wow your kids
Turn your youngsters into mini Egyptologists with these mummification secrets.
Let’s start with this secret: Mummies weren’t spooky to the ancient Egyptians.
“Nowadays, when we look at anything dead, we consider it to be creepy,” says Egyptologist and National Geographic Explorer Salima Ikram. “But it wasn’t like that for people from the past—death was just a part of life.”
Over thousands of years, the Egyptians developed and tweaked the mummification process to keep a body’s soft tissue intact over long periods of time, ensuring that the deceased person’s soul would live on in the afterlife. Wrap kids up in some surprising mummy secrets.
Mummies weren’t just pharaohs.
Most people think that only rich people or pharaohs were mummified. And it is true that after they died, these folks were brought to professional embalmers who took up to 70 days to complete the elaborate, expensive process. But regular Egyptians could choose a budget version with fewer steps, and the poorest could also simply place their loved one in the ground wrapped in one piece of linen and recite the proper spells for their soul to enter the afterlife. “The ancient Egyptians really did believe that everyone would have the chance at resurrection,” Ikram says.
Organs were mummified separately.
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These Egyptian stone containers, called canopic jars, held mummified organs.
If left inside the body, the lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines would decay. So in the most elaborate version of mummification, priests carefully removed them. These organs would be washed, dried out, and wrapped before going into their own special jars and buried alongside the body.
But not the heart.
Ancient Egyptians believed the heart to be the source of a person’s emotions and personality—so it was left in place. (During the mummification process, this organ would dry out when the body was packed with natron, a naturally occurring mixture of baking soda and other salts.) The person would need it in the afterlife, where the gods would weigh the heart to judge his or her goodness. Misbehaved in life? Your heart would be devoured by a goddess with the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippo.
Mummies were brainless.
Egyptians weren’t sure what function the brain served, so they discarded this organ. Embalmers would carefully insert an iron hook up the left nostril and swish it around, pulling out bits of brain through the nose. Then they’d rinse the brain cavity to flush out the rest.
A mummy’s bandages could almost cover a professional basketball court.
Pharaohs were likely wrapped in linen strips that once covered statues of gods. (Common people probably used strips from old clothes and other household linens.) Royal embalmers would carefully wrap individual fingers and toes before winding the strips around hands and feet, legs and arms, and then the entire body. In total, the most elaborate mummies were wrapped in about 4,000 square feet of linen.
King Tut’s mummy was covered with jewels.
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On display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, these brooches made with semiprecious stones were found in Tut's tomb.
Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s mummy was packed with treasure: He had over 140 pieces of jewelry, amulets, and other items tucked between 17 layers of bandages. Golden rings, bracelets with lapis lazuli, colorful beaded collars, ceremonial daggers, and gold covers for his fingers and toes all adorned his body; small charms were likely meant to help him on his journey to the afterlife. For example, Egyptians were sometimes buried with an amulet in the shape of a snake’s head that might protect the wearer from snake bites.
Mummies were buried with their underwear.
Ancient Egyptians believed that the afterlife would be a lot like regular life—except without mosquitoes, disease, or other hardship. So they’d need all the things that they enjoyed in this life—including their underwear—buried with them in their tombs. Egyptians also often packed things like games, beds, shoes, perfume, pots and pans, and lots of snacks inside their burial chambers.
Animals could be mummies, too.
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Like this cat displayed at Paris's Louvre Museum, many ancient Egyptian animals were mummified as offerings to the gods or because they were beloved pets.
Experts have uncovered animal mummies of all types: cats, dogs, rams, bulls, monkeys, ibises, and even a crocodile with mummified babies in its mouth. Some of these mummies were worshipped as gods while they were alive—like a sacred bull deity named Apis. Others were raised to be sacrificed to the gods. But some were beloved pets: One common man named Hapi-men was buried with his mummified dog curled at his feet.
Tut might’ve died from a broken leg.
Scientists have studied Tutankhamun’s mummy with CT scans and DNA tests, revealing that the young pharaoh likely suffered from malaria, a broken leg, and bone disease. These health issues might have led to his death, but experts aren’t ready to close the case. Whatever the cause, Tut died around age 19, and he seems to have been hastily buried in his now-famous tomb.
Some ancient Egyptians really did believe in “the mummy’s curse.”
Most Westerners learned of the legend after at least six people associated with Tut’s 1922 discovery died. But the mummy’s curse isn’t something modern excavators invented—some ancient Egyptians did try to curse potential tomb robbers. “They said the council of the gods would judge you,” Ikram says. “A hippo would trample you, or a snake would bite you, or a crocodile would consume you.” An inscription on one man’s tomb even warns that he’d fill any grave robber with a “fear of seeing ghosts.” Turns out, ancient Egyptians weren’t spooked by mummies—but they were afraid of being haunted!
BONUS. Mummies aren’t just from Egypt. Nearly 2,000 years earlier than the Egyptians, the Chinchorro people mummified their loved ones in what’s now southern Peru and northern Chile. Today, some people in Papua New Guinea mummify their relatives by drying out the bodies and then covering them with red clay.