The ancient Egyptian civilization has always been an inexhaustible treasure of secrets and surprises that amazed and puzzled archaeologists and was the subject of their study, starting with deciphering the hieroglyphic language, the secrets of building the pyramids, the mystery of mummification of corpses, and even the bright dyes that decorate the drawings of the walls of the pharaonic tombs.

New insights

A team of Egyptian and German scientists succeeded in presenting new insights about the chemicals that the ancient Egyptians used to embalm their dead, by analyzing the chemical residues found in vessels extracted from the embalming workshop in Saqqara near the Pyramid of Unas, discovered in 2016, and the team published the results His research was published in the journal "Nature" on the first of February.

The research is the result of a joint effort between the National Research Center in Cairo and the German Ludwig Maximilian University and the University of Tübingen.

All analyzes were carried out in Egypt with the help of Dr. Ramadan Hussein, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Tübingen, who discovered and led the excavations of the Saqqara tomb projects (and who died suddenly in the spring), Dr. Maxime Ragot of the University of Tübingen said in the press release. published by the university.

Match the name with the article

The press release states that experts had embalmed the dead in an embalming workshop in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, and the discovery of many pots used in that workshop by skilled Egyptian craftsmen was a tremendous stroke of luck for Egyptologists who were able to distinguish the pots according to their previous contents.

Some were even engraved with instructions for use, said Susanne Beck of the University of "Tübingen", who is leading the excavations, and says, "We have known the names of many of these mummification components since deciphering the ancient Egyptian writings, but until now we could only guess the materials that were used." She was behind every name."

Archaeologist Dr. Ramadan Hussein during excavations at Saqqara (University of Tübingen)

And from the ancient Egyptian texts, scientists translated some of the names of the chemicals that the Egyptians used in embalming, including the substance "antiu", which was translated long ago as myrrh or frankincense, but analysis of the chemical residues in the vessels made it possible to isolate the molecular remains of those materials that were used in the past. In a specific vessel and identifying it, revealing that this substance is actually a mixture of different components, and scientists have been able to separate it with the help of gas chromatography (mass spectrometry), and discovered that this mixture consists of cedar oil, juniper oil (cypress) and animal fats.

Comparing the identified materials with the labels on the vessels enabled the team of researchers for the first time to identify exactly what materials were used to embalm certain parts of the body, for example only pistachio gum and castor oil were used for the head.

"What really surprised us was that most of the materials used in mummification were not from Egypt itself," says Philipp Stockhammer, an archaeologist at Ludwig University who funded the research through his ERC Start Grant. Some of them were imported from the Mediterranean, and even from Equatorial Africa and Southeast Asia."

The excavation area of ​​the Saqqara Tombs Project overlooking the Pyramid of Unas and the Pyramid of Djoser, heading to the northwest (Reuters)

global business network

Besides pistachio gum, cedar oil, and tar, all of which likely came from the Levant, the researchers also found residues of dammar gum and elemi resin, and these two substances in particular show how globalized trade relations had truly become since the Approximately 3 thousand years, while the gum of the Elemi tree may have come to Egypt from tropical Africa or Southeast Asia, the Al-Dummar tree - according to what is available from scientific information to this day - grows only in Southeast Asia.

It is clear that tremendous efforts have been made in obtaining very specific chemicals for the mummification process, and this indicates the existence of international trade relations, says Rajut, who adds, "In the end, Egyptian mummification may have played an important role in the early emergence of global networks, and quantities were needed Lots of these weird glues."

Stockhammer agrees, saying, "Thanks to all the inscriptions on the vessels, we will be able in the future to decipher the vocabulary of ancient Egyptian chemistry, which we did not sufficiently understand until now."