Those who wish to avoid the expense, choose this other method; they fill syringes with an unctious liquor which they obtain from the cedar, with this they inject the belly of the corpse without making any incision, and without withdrawing the intestines; when this liquor has been introduced into the cavity, they cork it; the body is then salted for the prescribed time. The last day they draw off from the body the injected liquor, it has such strength that it dissolves the ventricles and intestines, which come away with the liquid. The natrum destroys the flesh, and there remains of the body only the skin and the bones. This operation finished, they return the body without doing anything further to it.
The third kind of embalming is only for the poorer classes of society, they inject the body with a fluid called surmata, they put the body in natrum for seventy days, and they afterwards return it to those who brought it.
As to the ladies of quality, when they are dead, they are not immediately sent to the embalmers, any more than such as are beautiful or highly distinguished; they are reserved for three or four days after death. They take this precaution lest the embalmers might pollute the bodies confided to their care.
The relatives now fix the day for the obsequies in order that the judges, the relations, and the friends of the dead may be present, and they characterize it by saying that he is going to pass the lake; afterwards the judges, to the number of more than forty arriving, place themselves in the form of a semicircle beyond the lake. A bateau approaches, carrying those who have charge of the ceremony, and in which is a sailor whom the Egyptians name in their language, Charon. Before placing in the bateau the coffin containing the body of the deceased, it is lawful for each one present to accuse him. If they prove that he has led a sinful life, the judges condemn him, and he is excluded from the place of his sepulture, if it appear that he has been unjustly accused, they punish the accuser with severity. If no accuser presents himself or if the one who does so is known to be a calumniator, the relatives, putting aside the signs of their grief, deliver an eulogism, on the deceased without mentioning his birth, because they consider all Egyptians equally noble. They enlarge on the manner in which he has been schooled and instructed from his childhood; upon his piety, justice, temperance, and his other virtues since he attained manhood, and they pray the Gods of hell to admit him into the dwelling of the pious. The people applauded and glorified the dead who were to pass all eternity in the abodes of the happy. If any one has a monument destined for his sepulture, his body is there deposited; if he has none, they construct a room in his house, and place the bier upright against the most solid part of the wall. They place in their houses those to whom sepulture has not been awarded, either on account of crimes, of which they are accused, or on account of the debts which they may have contracted; and it happens sometimes in the end that they obtained honorable sepulture, their children or descendants becoming rich, pay their debts or absolve them.
The Egyptian embalmers knew how to distinguish from the other viscera, the liver, the spleen, and the kidneys, which they did not disturb; they had discovered the means of withdrawing the brain from the interior of the body without destroying the bones of the cranium; they knew the action of alkalies upon animal matter, since the time was strictly limited that the body could remain in contact with these substances; they were not ignorant of the property of balsams, and resins to protect the bodies from the larvae of insects and mites; they were likewise aware of the necessity of enveloping the dried and embalmed bodies, in order to protect them from the humidity, which would interfere with their preservation.
The preceding is a description of ancient Egyptian embalming as given by Herodotus, and has been the subject of numerous commentations, discussions and researches. It is almost a positive fact that Herodotus has omitted desiccation, and that it naturally took place during the time consecrated to preparation. From the mummies examined it is believed now that the body was first salted for seventy days, then dried, and that it was not until after this desiccation that the resinous and balsamic substances were applied. A simple inspection of the mummies is sufficient to confirm this opinion and besides what use would have been these resinous matters, with which the alkali of the natrum would soon form a soapy mass, which the lotions would have carried off, at least in great part? It is much more reasonable to suppose that these balsamic and resinous substances were not applied to the bodies until after they were withdrawn from the natrum.
All the ancients agree, in saying that the Egyptians made use of the various aromatics to embalm the dead; that they employed for the rich myrrh, aloes, canella, and cassia lignea; and for the poor, the cedria, bitumen, and natrum. The natrum was a mixture of carbonate, sulphate, and muriate of soda. It was a fixed alkali, which acted after the manner of quicklime; despoiling the bodies of their lymphatic, and greasy fluids, leaving only the fibrous and solid parts. The odoriferous resins and bitumen not only preserved from destruction, but also kept at a distance the worms and beetles which devour dead bodies.
The embalmers, after having washed the bodies with palm wine, and having filled them with odoriferous resins or bitumen, they place them in stoves, where by means of convenient heat these resinous substances united intimately with the bodies, and these arrive in a very little time to that state of perfect preservation which we find them at the present day. This operation of which no historian has spoken, was, without doubt, the principle and most important part of their embalming.
CHAPTER II. EMBALMING FROM EGYPTIANS DOWN TO CIVIL WAR.
Here facts are almost entirely wanting and the history of the art we are studying, can only be followed in the recitals of historians, to control whose veracity we have no longer those monuments which Egypt offers us in such great numbers. Among the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, and all modern nations, we see the honors of embalming accorded to Kings, Princes and men of distinction, but no tomb that has been opened, has rendered a single mummy so perfect, as those which we admire among the Egyptians.