New results on the research of the embalmers of Ancient Egypt indicate that there was not always a heart inside the mummy, and even when removing the internal organs, cedar oil was not always used, as it was considered for a very long time.
Scientists got a lot of information from Herodotus, about the processes of mummification that took place in ancient Egypt, Herodotus himself lived in the 5th century BC. In the writings of Herodotus, the process of embalming the ancient Egyptians, different classes of the population, is described. For example, if the elite was embalmed, then the belly of the corpse was cut open, and the necessary internal organs were removed through the belly.
The ancient Egyptians of the lower class underwent a much different procedure, with this method the internal organs of the corpse were dissolved, for this they used an enema in which there was cedar oil, this method of removing internal organs was similar to turpentine. As Herodotus said that with this method of embalming, the brain was still removed, and some other sources claim that the heart remained in the body of the dead.
Not long ago it became known to refute all these historical ancient sources. When researching one hundred and fifty mummies, in February in an article, Comparative Human Biology. At the University of Western Ontario, anthropologist Andrew Wade, (one of the co-authors of the research), according to his research, it was known that in Ancient Egypt embalming was a profitable business and therefore competitive, which means that some secrets were kept secret.
Wade and colleague Andrew Nelson worked together to explore many different historical sources to find out exactly how the autopsies were done. And they managed to find interesting details during the research of one hundred and fifty mummies, several millennia. A CT scan was also done in three dimensions during the reconstruction of seven mummies.
The most important key find is that dissections of the Egyptian nobility, on minor occasions, were performed through an incision in the back. Interestingly, sarcophagi were made to fit the body, this was done to ensure a more even mummification process. Ancient Egypt is the only strange place where the process of making mummies (preserving the bodies of the dead) was a great art.
It turns out that there was no evidence of embalming when using an enema in which there was cedar oil, for the lower strata of the ancient Egyptians, as Wade noted, I wonder why then Herodotus wrote this method of mummification.
We managed to find a heart in 25 percent of all mummies. This suggests that mummification became available to the middle class during the transition period, which means that the heart could become an important symbol of the deceased.
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