The Origin of Mummies: From Ancient Egyptian Tombs to Global Archaeological Marvels and the Secrets Beneath the Bandages

When Tutankhamun’s tomb was excavated in 1922, the world fell into a state of shock and wonder. The golden artifacts of the pharaoh were astounding, but it was the mummy of the boy king — having survived thousands of years — that once again posed humanity’s most fundamental questions about death and immortality. Why are we so captivated by these millennia-old bodies?

A mummy is not simply an Egyptian relic wrapped in bandages. From the deserts of South America, from the cold bogs of Europe, from the deep mountain temples of Japan — the desire to permanently preserve the dead has appeared universally across human cultures, transcending time and civilization. And the reasons were remarkably varied. The Egyptians mummified to prepare for the journey to the afterlife; the Inca to venerate their ancestors as if they were still living; Japanese monks mummified themselves in order to become Buddhas.

This article traces the long human story of those who sought to make death into eternity — beginning with the etymology of the word “mummy,” moving through the oldest mummies in human history, the bizarre mummy-unwrapping parties of modern Europe, and arriving at the astonishing secrets that modern science is still uncovering within these preserved remains.

Where Did the Word “Mummy” Come From?

The English word mummy derives from the medieval Arabic mūmiya (مومياء), which in turn came from the Persian mūm (موم), meaning “wax.”^[1] Originally, the word referred to the black bituminous substance that seeped from Egyptian mummies, which medieval Europeans believed was a mixture of wax and asphalt.

Interestingly, the word did not initially refer to an entire preserved body. In medieval Europe, mumia denoted the black resinous substance extracted from Egyptian mummies — a medicinal ingredient.^[1] This substance was sold in apothecaries in the belief that it could mend broken bones and heal wounds. Because the raw material for this medicine was Egyptian mummies themselves, the word’s meaning gradually expanded from “medicine” to “the entire preserved corpse.”

The Korean word mira entered the language via the Portuguese mirra, which shares the same etymological root.^[1] In other words, the very word we use for “mummy” originated from medieval Europe’s obsession with a drug extracted from the bodies of the dead.

Humanity’s First Mummies: The Chinchorro Culture of Chile

Many people assume Egypt was the birthplace of mummification, but the oldest artificially preserved human remains in recorded history actually appeared on the other side of the world, in South America.

The Fishermen of the Atacama Desert

From around 7000 BCE, the Chinchorro culture flourished along the coastal region near Arica in northern Chile — at the edge of the Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth.^[2] These were small-scale communities who lived by fishing and gathering shellfish from the sea. Around 5000 BCE, they began an extraordinary practice: the deliberate and elaborate preservation of their dead.

Chinchorro mummies are far from simply dried-out corpses. The Chinchorro intentionally dismembered and reassembled their dead in a remarkably complex process.^[2] They stripped the body down to the skeleton, reinforced the structure with sticks, then stuffed it with grass or animal hair to restore its form, and finally re-covered it with skin. Some mummies had clay masks applied to their faces, with the skin painted black using manganese. This is the “Black Mummy” style — the earliest known form.^[2]

Most striking is the high proportion of mummies belonging to newborns and young children. Researchers suggest that the Chinchorro people first observed the natural drying of bodies in the extreme conditions of the Atacama — intense heat, low humidity, and nitrate-rich soil — and developed artificial mummification techniques from that observation.^[2]

In 2021, UNESCO inscribed the Chinchorro mummies and their associated sites on the World Heritage List.^[2] This coastal desert region — where humanity first began deliberately preserving its dead — is now part of our shared world heritage.

Natural Mummies vs. Artificial Mummies

Mummies fall into two broad categories. Natural mummies form when specific environmental conditions — the heat of a desert, the deep freeze of polar regions, or the acidic environment of a peat bog — happen to prevent a body from decomposing. Artificial mummies are the result of deliberate human intervention, as with the Chinchorro or ancient Egyptians. The most famous natural mummy is Ötzi the Iceman, discovered in the Alps in 1991, who lived around 3300 BCE.^[8]

Ancient Egyptian Mummification: The Technology of Conquering Death

While the Chinchorro hold the title of producing the world’s first mummies, no culture developed a more sophisticated or systematic tradition of mummification than ancient Egypt.

The Conditions for Eternal Life: The Myth of Osiris and Egyptian Beliefs About the Afterlife

Egyptian mummification was not merely a technique for preserving bodies — it was an expression of religious faith. In Egyptian mythology, Osiris was murdered by his brother Set, his body torn into pieces and scattered across the Nile. His wife Isis gathered all the fragments, reassembled them, and performed the first embalming, allowing Osiris to be resurrected from death and become the god of the underworld.^[3]

The Egyptians saw this myth as the prototype for death and resurrection. To journey to the afterlife — the realm of Duat — the soul needed a home to return to: the physical body had to remain intact. In Egyptian belief, a human being possessed multiple spiritual components, among them the ba (personality and individual essence), which took the form of a bird and roamed the world during the day before returning to the body at night. If the body decayed, the ba would have no home to return to.^[3] Mummification was therefore an essential precondition for eternal life.

The Development of Mummification

Egyptian mummification began to develop in earnest around 2600 BCE, during the Fourth Dynasty.^[3] Initially, the hot desert sand simply dried out bodies naturally; but increasingly refined artificial mummification techniques were developed for nobles and royalty.

The mummification process took approximately 70 days.^[3] First, priests washed the body thoroughly with a solution of natron — a naturally occurring Egyptian sodium carbonate. The brain was treated first: a hook-like instrument was inserted through the nostrils, and the brain tissue was extracted or dissolved and removed bit by bit.^[3] Then an incision was made on the left side of the abdomen to remove the internal organs. Four major organs — the stomach, liver, lungs, and intestines — were treated separately and stored in Canopic jars.

The heart alone was left in place. The Egyptians believed it to be the seat of intelligence and emotion — the dwelling place of the soul.^[3] In the Weighing of the Heart ceremony performed before Osiris in the afterlife, the heart had to be lighter than the feather of Ma’at (truth) for eternal life to be granted.

The empty body cavity was packed with natron, linen scraps, and spices to maintain the form. The entire body was then placed on a bed of natron and left to dry for approximately 40 days.^[3] Once sufficiently dried, the body was rubbed with oils and resins to soften the skin, then carefully wrapped in linen bandages. As the priests wound the bandages, they inserted amulets and papyrus scrolls inscribed with spells into specific areas.

Eternity Completed by Craftsmen’s Hands

The artisans responsible for mummification occupied a unique position in Egyptian society. The individual who made the incision in the body was required to perform a ritual in which he was symbolically pelted with stones and chased away — because the act bore a resemblance to harming a living person.^[3] Mummification craftsmen performed sacred work, yet they were simultaneously considered ritually impure for their association with death.

Around 1000 BCE, during the New Kingdom, Egyptian mummification reached its peak. Mummies from this period were sometimes fitted with golden face masks, or had their eye sockets filled with glass or stone to create a lifelike appearance. The mummy of Ramesses II is currently on display at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in Cairo^[10], and its state of preservation is almost impossible to believe for a body more than 3,000 years old.

Diverse Mummification Traditions Around the World

Mummification was not a practice unique to Egypt. From different ecological environments and cultural beliefs, humanity independently developed its own ways of preserving the dead.

Inca Mummies: A World Ruled by the Dead

In the Andean civilizations of South America, mummies were not simply preserved bodies — they were living ancestors. In the Inca Empire, a deceased emperor (the Sapa Inca) was not buried. Instead, he was mummified and placed in a magnificent palace, attended by dedicated servants who offered food and drink, presented coca leaves, and kept flies away.^[4]

These imperial mummies also attended official state events. At major festivals, the mummies of past emperors would be arranged in a line in the plaza, with attendants speaking on their behalf.^[4] When political decisions were made, the “opinion” of the emperor’s mummy was formally consulted. This is precisely why mummification was so important in Inca culture — a dead emperor did not disappear; he continued to participate in governance.

The dry, high-altitude Andean climate and the saline soil in certain areas naturally aided preservation, and the Inca developed ritual mummification techniques while making use of these natural conditions.

European Bog Bodies: Secrets of the Northern Bogs

In northern Europe — particularly Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom — ancient bodies have been found preserved in remarkable condition in peat bogs. These bog bodies were preserved in a completely different manner from Egyptian mummies.^[5]

Peat bogs create a uniquely hostile environment for decomposition: high acidity (pH 3.3–4.5), low temperatures, and oxygen deprivation all combine to prevent decay. These conditions preserve skin, hair, and fingernails with extraordinary fidelity, while paradoxically dissolving bones — the acidic environment breaks down the calcium phosphate in bone.^[5]

The most famous bog body is Tollund Man, found in Denmark in 1950. The most recent radiocarbon dating (2019) places him in the period 405–380 BCE. He was discovered with a leather noose around his neck.^[5] His facial expression was serene — as if he were sleeping — and even his skin wrinkles and stubble were clearly preserved, shocking those who found him. His last meal was a porridge of barley and flaxseed, determined from the preserved contents of his stomach.

Also well known is Lindow Man, discovered in Cheshire, England, in 1984. Estimated to date from around the first century BCE, he bears signs of having been killed in three ways simultaneously — strangulation, a cut to the throat, and drowning — which researchers associate with ritual human sacrifice in Celtic culture.^[5]

The Palermo Catacombs of Sicily: Eternity for Monks and Nobles

In Palermo, Sicily, lies one of the world’s most extensive mummy collections: the Capuchin Catacombs (Catacombe dei Cappuccini).^[6]

In the sixteenth century, the Capuchin friars, running short of burial space, began excavating catacombs beneath their monastery. In 1599, the first body — that of Brother Silvestro da Gubbio — was interred there, and the dry, well-ventilated environment of the catacombs naturally mummified it.^[6]

The catacombs subsequently became a status symbol for nobles and the wealthy. Bodies were placed on ceramic pipe shelves to dry out, and were sometimes washed with vinegar. Today the catacombs hold approximately 8,000 mummies, arranged along the corridors and sorted by era, sex, and occupation.^[6]

The most famous mummy here is Rosalia Lombardo, a two-year-old girl. Known as “the Sleeping Beauty of Sicily,” she died in 1920 and was preserved to near-perfect condition — looking as if she were merely asleep — using a then-cutting-edge embalming technique involving formalin, alcohol, glycerin, salicylic acid, and zinc salts.^[6]

Japan’s Sokushinbutsu: Monks Who Became Mummies

There is also a tradition of mummification in which individuals walked willingly toward death. In temples around the Dewa Sanzan mountains in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, one can find examples of sokushinbutsu (即身仏) — literally “a Buddha in this very body.”

Sokushinbutsu is an extreme ascetic practice within the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism, in which a monk gradually mummifies himself while still alive in order to become a Buddha.^[7] The practice is rooted in the teachings of Kukai (Kobo Daishi), the founder of the Shingon sect, and represents the ultimate embodiment of the doctrine that “one can attain Buddhahood in this very body” (Sokushin Jobutsu).

The practice unfolded over approximately 3,000 days — roughly nine years.^[7] For the first 1,000 days, the monk subsisted only on tree bark, leaves, seeds, and pine roots, abstaining from grains and vegetables, burning away all body fat. For the next 1,000 days, he drank a bitter tea brewed from the bark of the urushi lacquer tree, whose toxic compounds accumulated in the body and made it inhospitable to maggots and bacteria. In the final stage, the monk entered a small stone chamber, held a bell cord to signal his survival while chanting sutras, and when the bell fell silent, the chamber was sealed.

When the chamber was opened three years later, if the body had been preserved without decomposition, the sokushinbutsu was considered complete, and the monk was enshrined in the temple and venerated.^[7] Hundreds attempted the practice, but only around twenty are known to have succeeded. The Meiji government banned the practice by law in 1879, but the last sokushinbutsu was completed illegally in 1903.^[7] Today, approximately seventeen sokushinbutsu are on public display in temples throughout Japan.

Mummies and the Strange History of Modern Europe

Mummies as Medicine: Europeans Who Consumed the Dead

In medieval Europe, Egyptian mummies were not marvels to be revered — they were precious medicine. The substance known as “mumia” — a dark resinous material extracted from Egyptian mummies — was believed to stop internal bleeding, mend broken bones, treat epilepsy, and heal bruises.^[1]

From the fifteenth century onward, European apothecaries sold ground mummy powder, mummy oil, and even strips of mummy bandages. Demand was so high that a dedicated black market industry emerged in Egypt for smuggling mummies to Europe as medicine. When supply could not meet demand, freshly deceased criminals’ bodies were made into counterfeit mummies and sold.^[11]

The Mummy Unwrapping Party: A Victorian-Era Spectacle

Following Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition in the nineteenth century, a craze for all things Egyptian swept through Europe — “Egyptomania.” Among London’s upper classes, mummy unwrapping parties became fashionable.^[6]

Thomas Pettigrew, a British surgeon and Egyptologist, was the foremost practitioner of this spectacle. He hosted mummy unwrapping events not only at the Royal College of Surgeons, but also in the drawing rooms of aristocrats’ townhouses. Some events drew audiences of up to 3,000 people.^[6] Each event began with a lecture on the mummy in question, followed by the theatrical unwrapping of the bandages layer by layer, with amulets and hidden artifacts revealed to the crowd. These events were partly scholarly — and partly bizarre entertainment and social occasions.

Mummy Brown: A Paint Made from the Dead

Even more startling is the fact that painters once used mummies as pigment. A color known as Mummy Brown — or “Egyptian Brown” — was made by grinding Egyptian mummies into powder and mixing them with asphalt.^[6] This warm, rich brown paint was popular among European artists of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

Mummy Brown became widespread after an art supply shop in eighteenth-century Paris began selling ground mummy powder as a pigment, and it continued to be sold in Britain into the 1960s.^[6] The manufacturer Roberson’s finally ceased sales in 1964, when they announced that their stock of mummies had been exhausted. A company representative is reported to have remarked: “We had about half a mummy left, but that’s all used up now.”

What Modern Science Has Discovered Inside Mummies

Modern mummy research provides us with information beyond all imagination. Where in the past it was necessary to actually dissect a mummy, today’s advanced technology allows researchers to examine the interior of mummies in extraordinary detail without causing any damage.

CT Scanning and DNA Analysis: Reading a Mummy Without Unwrapping It

Computed tomography (CT scanning) has revolutionized mummy research. Without unwinding a single layer of bandage, researchers can examine internal structure, organ condition, skeletal abnormalities, and even dental health. This allows them to determine an ancient individual’s health condition, diet, occupational stress, and cause of death.

DNA analysis has opened yet another dimension. Studies published since 2022 have conducted genome analyses of dozens of Egyptian mummies, revealing important clues about the population movements and genetic origins of ancient Egyptians.^[8]

In the case of Ötzi the Iceman, found in the Alps, the most recent genome analysis (2023) revealed that he had considerably darker skin than previously assumed, carried genes associated with male pattern baldness, and had been infected with Lyme disease.^[8] That we can obtain such detailed health information about a person who lived 5,300 years ago is truly remarkable.

Paleopathology: Reading Ancient Disease Through Mummies

Mummy research has given rise to the field of paleopathology — the study of ancient disease. Through mummies, researchers can determine what illnesses afflicted ancient peoples, what parasites they harbored, and even to what extent conditions like cancer and heart disease were present.

Multiple studies have found traces of arteriosclerosis in ancient Egyptian mummies^[12], demonstrating that cardiovascular disease — long considered a modern affliction — was in fact already plaguing humanity thousands of years ago. Signs of silicosis have also been found in mummies of ancient Egyptian miners.

Mummies in Popular Culture: From Horror to Adventure

The Cursed Mummy: The Curse of Tutankhamun

Mummies have also become icons of horror. The string of deaths following the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 gave birth to the legend of the Pharaoh’s Curse. Lord Carnarvon, the expedition’s patron, died shortly after the discovery from an infected mosquito bite, and several others involved in the excavation subsequently died unexpectedly.^[9]

Scientific explanations have ranged from infection by mold or toxic bacteria found in the tomb to statistical coincidence. There is no evidence that any actual “curse” existed. But the story powerfully captured the public imagination and became the archetype for all mummy-related horror that followed.

The Mummy on Screen: The Mummy (1932)

The original mummy horror film is Universal Pictures’ The Mummy (1932). Boris Karloff plays the ancient Egyptian priest Imhotep, a role inspired by the contemporary Tutankhamun excavation frenzy.^[9] The story — in which a mummy sealed in a tomb for ages is awakened by archaeologists and roams the modern world in search of his past love — established the basic formula for all mummy films that followed.

The 1999 remake directed by Stephen Sommers combined action-adventure elements with the horror premise and was a major global box-office success, cementing the villainous mummy character named Imhotep in the minds of modern audiences.^[9]

Fascinating Facts Worth Knowing

Tutankhamun was a boy king: Tutankhamun — so often treated as the symbol of the pharaohs — ascended to the throne at around age nine and died at around nineteen. CT scan analysis suggests he most likely died from congenital defects and complications from malaria.^[8]

There is an urban legend that mummies were burned as locomotive fuel in Egypt: Stories circulate that mummies were used as fuel for steam locomotives in nineteenth-century Egypt, but this is an unfounded urban legend. In reality, mummies were far more commonly consumed as medicine or ground into pigment.

Ramesses II is a mummy with a passport: In 1974, when the mummy of Ramesses II was transported from Egypt to Paris, France, for conservation treatment, an official Egyptian passport was issued in the pharaoh’s name. His occupation was listed as “King (deceased).”

The most recent natural mummies are those preserved by freezing: Even after the twentieth century, the bodies of modern climbers who perished on high-altitude expeditions in the Alps and the Himalayas have been found as glacial mummies. Regardless of technological progress, nature still creates mummies.

Conclusion: Humanity’s Ancient Dream of Holding Death at Bay

Mummies contain a universal human desire: to keep those we love near us forever; to believe that something continues after death; and to hope that one’s own existence will not completely vanish from the world. This desire was expressed in its own way among the Chinchorro fishermen of South America, the pharaohs of Egypt, the Inca emperors of the Andes, the bodies preserved in European bogs, and the monks in Japanese mountain temples.

The mummies that lie before us across thousands of years are not merely artifacts. They are messages across time, carrying the stories of those who sought to make peace with death — or to overcome it entirely. And modern science’s CT scanners and DNA analysis are now decoding those messages in ways we could never have imagined.

Within the bandages, beneath the bogs, locked inside mountain glaciers — mummies still have many stories to tell.