10 Ways to Make a Mummy

Bog Bodies
Northern Europe
The key to the remarkable preservation of bog bodies, as with all mummies, was that bacteria and fungi, nature's agents of decay, couldn't carry out their usual work. For many years it was assumed that merely the acidic, oxygen-free environments of peat bogs kept microbes away. But recently a new explanation has emerged: a substance called sphagnan, found in the Sphagnum moss that blankets many bogs, acts as an antibiotic. Sphagnan also tans skin, giving bog bodies their characteristic coffee color.

Natural Mummies
Egypt
Centuries before the art of embalming or "artificial" mummification was developed in Egypt, bodies were naturally mummified in pits dug into the desert sands. These arid graves were inhospitable to fungi and bacteria, which need water to thrive. In addition to being relatively microbe-free, the desert in Egypt is rich in a mineral called natron that contains both salt and baking soda; it's an ideal disinfectant and desiccant that drew the moisture from buried corpses and kept them more or less pristine.

Classic Mummies
Egypt
Most of the well-known royal mummies of ancient Egypt were prepared for eternal life through an elaborate process called classic mummification. It involved the removal of all internal organs other than the heart, which Egyptians believed was the source of intelligence. Embalmers then cleansed the body with wine, dried it for 40 days in natron, made it supple with oils, and wrapped it in resin-coated linen bandages, which protected it from oxygen, microbes, and moisture.

Pazyryk Mummies
Southern Siberia
Mummies discovered in the Altay Mountains of southern Siberia were shielded from decay by both natural and artificial means. Pazyryk embalmers removed internal organs and muscles, then stitched skin back together with horsehair thread. The bodies were buried in graves marked by great mounds of stones that allowed water to seep down and deflected the sun's heat. This, together with long winters, kept the ground below permanently frozen, safeguarding woolen rugs, sacrificed horses, and the embalmed human corpses.

Lady Dai
Central China
She's been called the best-preserved mummy in the world. When unearthed in 1971, her flesh body was still supple, and her veins contained type-A blood. What accounts for her conservation? Some researchers point to her airtight coffin. Like a Russian doll, her coffin lay nested in a series of six caskets, and the entire burial chamber, with over 1,000 Han Dynasty artifacts, was encased in charcoal and clay 50 feet underground. Other scientists suspect that a mercury bath after death was her ticket to immortality.

"Ötzi" the Iceman
Northern Italy
When hikers in the Ötztal region of the Italian Alps stumbled upon this man's corpse, his unusual bearskin cap and copper axe hinted that he wasn't modern. Indeed, radiocarbon dating confirmed that "Ötzi," as he is affectionately known, lived between 3350 and 3100 B.C. An arrow shot into his back killed this Stone Age man, but conditions in his glacial tomb gave him an afterlife. His body, first buried in snow and then embedded in ice, remained deep-frozen for over 5,000 years.

Ürümchi Mummies
Northwestern China
In the windswept desert region near the city of Ürümchi, China, dozens of natural mummies have come to light, conserved by dry and salty sands as well as severely cold winters. These 3,000- to 4,000-year-old bodies are surprising not just because they retain lifelike features, but because many of these features, including reddish-blond hair and long, narrow noses, seem distinctly Caucasian. Archeologists think these people may have belonged to an ancient civilization that existed at the crossroads between Europe and China.

Guanche Mummies
Canary Islands
The Guanche people mummified their dead for centuries before Spain conquered the Canary Islands in 1402. Most of the mummies have disappeared, but historic sources describe the embalming process, and at least one mummy survived. His body had been eviscerated, smeared with sheep butter, and dried in the sun for several weeks. The body cavity had then been filled with sand and other packing material, stitched up, wrapped in animal skins, and laid to rest in a funerary cave.

Qilakitsoq Mummies
Greenland
In 1972, hunters roaming near an abandoned Inuit settlement called Qilakitsoq chanced upon the graves of eight people. Six women and two children had been buried in the mid-15th century beneath an overhanging rock that sheltered the burial site from sunlight, rain, and snow. Slowly but steadily, dry winds and subzero temperatures freeze-dried their remains as well as their sealskin and fur clothing. Museum curators today sometimes use a similar process of freeze-drying to conserve unearthed bog bodies and organic artifacts.

Incan Mummies
Andes Mountains
While ritual sacrifices were rare in Incan culture, explorers have discovered dozens of sites where such ceremonies took place. Those sacrificed were invariably children, whose purity made them fit to enter the realm of the mountain gods. Frozen for over 500 years, their bodies retain beautifully braided hair, internal organs, even eyelashes. They are also stirring reminders that, no matter how they appear today, each mummy was once a living, breathing person.