A mummy is a deceased human or animal whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least 1615 AD. (See the section Etymology and meaning .) Mummies of humans and other animals have been found on every continent, [1] both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts. Over one million animal mummies have been found in Egypt, many of which are cats. [2] (See: Animal mummy) In addition to the well- known mummies of Ancient Egypt , deliberate mummification was a feature of several ancient cultures in areas of South America and Asia which have very dry climates. The oldest known deliberate mummy is a child, one of the Chinchorro mummies found in the Camarones Valley, Chile, which dates around 5050 BCE.[3] The oldest known naturally mummified human corpse is a severed head dated as 6,000 years old, found in 1936 CE at the site named Inca Cueva No. 4 in South America. [4] Etymology and meaning The English word mummy is derived from medieval Latin mumia, a borrowing of the medieval Arabic word mūmiya (ﺀﺎﻴﻣﻮﻣ) and from a Persian word mūm (wax), [5] which meant an embalmed corpse, and as well as the bituminous embalming substance, and also meant bitumen.[6] The Medieval English term mummy was defined as medical preparation of the substance of mummies, rather than the entire corpse, with Richard Hakluyt in 1599 CE complaining that these dead bodies are the Mummy which the Phisistians and Apothecaries doe against our willes make us to swallow.[7] These substances were defined as mummia. The OED defines a mummy as the body of a human being or animal embalmed (according to the ancient Egyptian or some analogous method) as a preparation for burial, citing sources from 1615 CE onward.[8] However, the Chambers Cyclopaedia, 1727–41 , and the Victorian zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland.[9] define a mummy as follows: A human or animal body desiccated by exposure to sun or air. Also applied to the frozen carcase of an animal imbedded in prehistoric ice.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 06:18:00 +0000
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