5 Little-Known Facts About Egyptian Mummies

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Few images from the ancient world are as striking as an Egyptian mummy wrapped in linen bandages. But behind that familiar picture lies a surprisingly elaborate technical process — these facts about Egyptian mummies show just how much practical science already existed more than three thousand years ago.

1. The full mummification process took about 70 days

Embalming a body in Ancient Egypt was never quick: the standard process, most common during the New Kingdom, took roughly 70 days between the initial cleaning, organ removal, drying the body with a natural salt called natron, and the final wrapping in linen. That long timeline wasn’t accidental — embalmers understood that complete dehydration was essential to prevent decay, and natron, a natural salt mixture found in deposits across Egypt, worked almost like a modern chemical desiccant.

2. Internal organs were removed and stored separately — except the heart

During the process, the brain was extracted through the nostrils with special hooked tools and discarded, considered unimportant. The other internal organs — lungs, stomach, liver, and intestines — were removed, dried, and stored in containers called canopic jars, each protected by one of the four sons of Horus. The heart, however, was deliberately left in the body: ancient Egyptians believed it would be weighed against a feather of the goddess Maat in the final judgment, deciding whether the person deserved an afterlife.

3. Animal mummies were produced by the millions

Mummification in Ancient Egypt wasn’t reserved for pharaohs and nobles. Archaeological excavations have uncovered catacombs holding millions of mummified cats, ibises, dogs, and even crocodiles, bred and mummified specifically as religious offerings to the gods associated with each species. Modern CT scans have shown that a significant share of these animal mummies were incomplete or even empty inside — evidence of what amounted to a mass-production industry built to meet pilgrim demand.

4. CT scanning transformed mummy research without ever unwrapping them

For over a century, studying a mummy in detail meant physically removing it from its wrappings, a destructive and irreversible process. Over the past few decades, high-resolution CT scanners have made it possible to build full 3D reconstructions of a mummified body without touching a single strip of linen, revealing details like diseases, causes of death, prosthetics, and even jewelry hidden inside the wrappings — all preserved exactly as it was left thousands of years ago.

5. Not everyone could afford the full process

High-end mummification, with the full 70-day process and materials like imported oils and fine linen, was extremely expensive and largely reserved for royalty and the elite. Historical sources, including accounts from the Greek writer Herodotus, describe at least three tiers of embalming available depending on what a family could pay — the cheapest methods were far simpler, sometimes little more than basic dehydration in hot sand, without the careful removal of organs.

6. Mummified pharaohs have been “examined” with X-rays and DNA

Royal mummies, including Tutankhamun’s, have undergone X-ray imaging and genetic sequencing that revealed striking information: diseases the person had in life, likely causes of death, and even family relationships between different pharaohs, confirming or revising family trees that historians previously knew only from inscriptions and written records, which were often incomplete or deliberately rewritten for political reasons at the time.

Long before the technique, the desert did the job on its own

Long before Egyptians developed an artificial mummification process, bodies buried directly in the hot, dry desert sand were already being naturally preserved by rapid dehydration — with no human intervention at all. Archaeologists call these “natural mummies,” and it’s believed that observing this phenomenon in simple pre-dynastic burials inspired Egyptians to later develop deliberate techniques to reproduce and improve on that same preservation effect, eventually giving rise to the ritualized process we know today.

How Egyptologists still find new mummies today

Even after more than two centuries of excavation, Egypt keeps revealing new tombs and mummies. Technologies like ground-penetrating radar and laser scanning (LiDAR) let archaeologists identify underground chambers without digging blindly, greatly reducing the risk of accidentally damaging fragile structures. One of the most notable finds of recent years was the 2023 discovery of a necropolis at the Saqqara complex containing dozens of mummies and sarcophagi sealed for more than 2,500 years, many still showing well-preserved paintings and inscriptions. Every new find is now typically studied first through non-invasive methods like CT scanning before any physical restoration — a very different approach from the 19th century, when mummies were opened and even publicly unwrapped as a form of entertainment.

A pharaoh once needed a passport

When the mummy of Ramesses II needed conservation treatment for a fungal infection in 1976, French authorities required it to have travel documents to enter the country, since a body — even one more than 3,200 years old — technically counted as a person crossing the border. Egyptian officials issued the pharaoh an actual passport, listing his occupation as “King (deceased),” and he was reportedly received at the Paris airport with the same military honors typically reserved for a visiting head of state.

If Ancient Egypt fascinates you, check out our piece with more facts about ancient Egypt covering more than just mummification.