The Embalmers' Craft

The technical skill required for mummification was extraordinary. Embalmers removed internal organs through a small incision, stored them in canopic jars, and extracted the brain through the nose using specialized hooks. The body was packed in natron salt for forty days to draw out moisture.

The whole process took roughly 70 days and followed a strict religious script. Priests wore jackal-headed masks to channel Anubis, god of the dead. The surviving papyri describe the ceremonial rituals but not the actual surgical methods, which were closely guarded and passed down through generations of hands-on practice. Because they handled the dead, embalmers were considered ritually unclean, set apart from ordinary society. A pharaoh's mummy was state property, not a family keepsake.