However, some of these substances would have served another purpose. In its place, the body was stuffed with sawdust and linen, as well as a range of other materials including cinnamon, myrrh, frankincense, cassia… and, reportedly, even onions! Presumably, this was in part simply to make the corpse smell a little more fragrant – whilst the natron might have halted decomposition, you’d presume that dried out corpse still doesn’t smell all that great. Once the desiccation of the corpse was complete, the natron was removed from the body’s cavities. It’s clear that if you left a corpse lying around for this long without the natron, you probably wouldn’t want to go anywhere near it (or what would be left of it) to complete the embalming process. Which is probably a good thing, as once the corpse was stuffed with natron, it was left for up to forty days (and some sources suggest even longer: seventy days). In addition, it saponified fatty tissues in the corpse.Ĭombined, the actions of natron prevented decomposition of the body. It’s hygroscopic, meaning that it absorbs water easily, so it was used by the Ancient Egyptians as a drying agent to dry out the body.

Natron is a salt mixture harvested from dry lake beds, consisting primarily of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate, but also containing small amounts of sodium chloride and sodium sulfate. This was accomplished by packing it with naturally-occurring natron. The brain was also removed, but in a slightly different manner: often, a hole was made at the base of the skull, and the brain was then cut into small pieces, removed, and discarded.Īfter this, the first step of the embalming process was to dry out the body. Of course before any of this could begin the organs would usually be removed from the mummy, with the exception of the heart (and apparently in some cases the kidneys). Since we’re focusing here on the chemicals used in the process, we’ll briefly skip over the initial steps. Here we take a look at the chemicals used in the process, and how modern chemistry can help us identify them.

However, there’s a little more behind the traditional embalming process used in Ancient Egypt, as well as a surprising amount of chemistry. Mummies are, perhaps, the easiest go-to costume for Halloween: grab some bandages, drape yourself in them, and job done.

Natron salt for mummification