Funeral Wisdom of the World

For those who don’t know the embalming is the funeral science and art of preserving the body and help forestall  decomposition. It is one of the earliest surgical procedures and funeral traditions in the history of the humankind.  Nobody really knows who invented this process in the ancient past.  Of course, we are aware of the mummification in ancient Egypt which in turn served as a catalyst of the art of embalming.  We know that ancient Incas and China in the times of the Han dynasty also believed in the preservation of the body after death and developed their methods of embalming too.

Perhaps, the earliest attempt of embalming and mummification is the mummy known to the specialists as “Ginger”.  This body found in the deserts of Egypt is positively dated to 3300 BC which means that it is older than other famous mummies of pharaohs discovered in the pyramids.  Ginger is currently on display in the British Museum, but it is not very well-known to the general public. 

The reason lies in the fact that Ginger’s burial still remains rather enigmatic.  At first specialists thought that the preservation of Ginger occured unintentionally as it happened in the later discovery of Otzi the Iceman.  However, they changed their mind later, as they found pottery and other artifacts in his grave and  on the burial site. Ginger was ideally preserved lying in fetal position which also points out that there were stones on the grave that prevented the body from being eaten by jackals and other scavengers.