Wrapping The Body - A Step-By-Step Guide To Egyptian Mummification For Kids - Part 8 of 12
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.
Oh hey there Egyptian Embalmers! You’re back. That’s good, because the our Pharaoh is dead (yeah yeah, sniffle, weep, sob) and their body has been withering away in a big bath of salt for the last seventy days and it’s about time we got them out really. Talk about pruney!
If you’ve no idea what happened yesterday, let alone what happened seventy days ago, I’ll give you a quick recap. In Parts 1 to 7 of our Step-By-Step Guide to Egyptian Mummification for Kids we pulled all of the Pharaoh’s organs out and popped them in Canopic Jars. And we dropped the Pharaoh’s body in a vat of Natron salt. Oh! The Pharaoh was dead by the way. Very dead. Don’t do all this while they’re alive. They won’t thank you!
Phew!
Alright then, time to get wrapping! I’m not great at beatboxing but I could certainly lay down a beat for you and you can hammer out some sick lyrics over the top?
I’m joking.
Don’t do that.
The next few bits are all about wrapping (not rapping).
Step 8 - Wrapping The Body
Moisturising
First things first, you may need to give the Pharaoh’s skin a good oiling. After all that drying out, their skin is probably pretty flaky. I know, I know. We spent all that time drying the body out and here we are adding moisture again! But the Pharaoh won’t want to head to the afterlife with big flakes of skin peeling off everywhere. It would be like having really bad dandruff. But, like, from your whole body! So grab some oil and buff that Pharaoh’s skin until it shines.
Preparing The Linen
Just to forewarn you, you’re going to need hundreds of metres of linen for this next step. So, if you haven’t got enough linen, now’s the time to go get some more.
No, really. Go get some more. You can never have too much.
It’s okay, I’ll wait.
Right. So, as I was saying, the linen needs to be cut into long strips that look a bit like bandages. You may be wondering, why linen and not something else? People used to sell their old clothing to embalmers to cut up and use as mummy wrappings. Because of this, the wrappings used to be called “the linen of yesterday”. The name stuck and the wrappings still get called this even if it isn’t made from Grannie’s old linen knickers anymore.
Wrapping The Body With Linen
So here goes. Using one strip of linen at a time, you’ll need to coat it in gum (which works a bit like glue) and then wind the material around the Pharaoh, covering the entire body from head to toe. Then smother the whole body (wrappings and all) in warm resin to help everything stick. This is a bit like glazing a cake with icing. But you know, less appetising.
Then do the whole thing again.
Yes, really! More linen, more gum, more wrapping, more resin.
The whole thing is really quite painstakingly long and tedious.
And did I mention you’ll need to wrap each finger and toe separately? And each hand, arm, foot and leg will need to be wrapped separately too. And on top of that, some of the linen bandages will need blessings inscribed onto them in hieroglyphs.
Oh and if you could utter some prayers whilst you do the wrapping too, that would be great. Thanks.
If you're dizzy from all that wrapping of linen round and round, you might want to unwind yourself with the next step of our Step-By-Step Guide to Egyptian Mummification For Kids:
