Burial 85, that of a woman we nick-named Paddy (20-25years), is perhaps the most intriguing of them all. She was found intact covered by a double layer of matting. Beneath the matting, we found her hands and lower arms had been padded with thick bundles of linen and then wrapped. Bundles of linen were also used to pad the area around the head: the base of the skull, the neck and jaw. Yet the major part of the face, the eyes, nose, and mouth were not covered. Her burial contained no grave goods in the usual sense. Only a couple of rounded sherds and a flint flake were found in the crook of her knees.

Careful removal of the upper layer of matting and linen pads around the head resulted in the preservation of her entire head of hair, revealing a shoulder-length style of natural waves extending c.22cm from the crown of the head with a left side parting and asymmetrical fringe made up of S-shaped curls bordering the forehead. In addition to the excellent preservation of the cranial hair, the right eyebrow also survived intact.

An in-depth osteological examination of her remains showed that there was more to this fascinating young lady than just appearance. It turned out that her throat bore cut-marks of the type found on other individuals, indicating that her throat had been slit before the area was covered in layers of linen.

Could this curious combination of cutting the throat and then wrapping and padding the same area with linen be an early reflection of the Osiris myth of the dismembered and then mummified god? But cut marks were not found on any of the other wrapped bodies. Perhaps this padding served to hold the head in place or magically protect the head and hands from later disturbance. The padded body parts, especially the hands and jaw, are associated with nourishment or the ability to feed oneself, thus could the padding have been an attempt to preserve for eternity what was necessary for maintenance in the next life? Whether this type of treatment directly led to the development of latter mummies remains unclear, but it does seem that its primary purpose was not the artificial preservation of the body’s appearance, but rather its articulation.

Whatever the case, these discoveries force us to rethink the standard explanation for the development of mummification. It has long been thought that in an attempt to thwart plundering and protect the body, graves were dug deeper and coffins came into use. But as a result, contact with the hot dry sand that preserved the body was lost. Thus mummification was invented to do artificially what the hot dry sand had been doing naturally. Clearly this may no longer be the case, but further excavation here and at other sites will be required before what is certain to be a complex issue can be resolved.

Read more about it in the Nekhen News, now on line.

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