Removing The Brain - A Step-By-Step Guide To Egyptian Mummification For Kids - Part 3 of 12
Updated: Aug 28
Welcome to the next part of our Step-By-Step Guide To Egyptian Mummification For Kids. You can find out what's happened so far in our Mummification journey, here.
Our Pharaoh is dead (boohoo, weep, snuffle) and we've taken the time to give him a bit of a scrub. Now it's time to get our hands dirty. Perhaps best to grab your mum's rubber gloves from the kitchen for this next bit.
Step 3 - Removing The Brain
Time For The Gory Bit
Next, we’ve got to take all of the organs out of the body before they start to decay. But remember, the Pharaoh still has to look like the Pharaoh after we’ve done this. Otherwise, their spirit won’t recognise their body and won’t know where to go for sustenance. So we need to take the organs out of the body without hacking it to pieces and making it look like the poor Pharaoh got mauled to death by a lion. (Unless this is actually how they died, in which case, go to town! A few more slashes won’t hurt!).
Getting The Brain Out
Things get particularly tricky when it comes to removing the brain. The best way to do this is to poke a long metal hook up the nose and pull all that gloopy grey matter out through the nostrils. Try to avoid breaking the Pharaoh’s nose when you do this. After all, we don’t want to upset Khenti-Khas, the Egyptian god of dead noses.
Bin That Brain
The brain isn’t important. So after you’ve scraped every last bit of it out of the skull, feel free to get rid of it however you see fit; bin it, feed it to your enemies, blast it into space, it’s your call.
That's it for the brain. Shame, I was quite enjoying all the gross stuff. Fortunately for us, there's a whole torso full of gooey stuff to get our hands on in the next step!
