9 Facts About Mummies That Are Seemingly Insane, But True

Intriguing things, these mummies. Imagine people taking immaculate care to make corpses last for thousands of years; providing them with every means of luxury that a person might need to lead an extravagant life – from personal servants to do biddings to their favourite pets, along with ample amount of food, drink, and clothes.

They also provided them with protection, of curses, of mazes, of hidden entrances, hoping that one day these corpses will rise from the dead. Now, though much of the things surrounding mummies are superstitions and speculations, there are also some actual things that are very weird about these mummies…

1. The mummy of king Ramesses II was issued an Egyptian passport

The passport listed his occupation as “King (deceased)”. The mummy was received at Le Bourget airport outside Paris, with the full military honours to befit a king.
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2. Scientists have discovered two ‘Frankenstein’ mummies in Scotland

The 3,000-year-old mummified bodies, one of a male and one of a female, are actually made from the remains of six different people, according to DNA tests.
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3. A certain sect of Japanese Buddhist Monks called Sokushinbutsu prepared their bodies to be naturally mummified after death

They would live on only nuts and seeds, go through rigorous physical activity to get rid of all their body fat. They would also drink a poisonous tea that not only caused a rapid loss of body fluids, it also made it impossible for insects and worms to eat the flesh of the corpse. They’d finally lock themselves in tombs and eventually die there. This practice is now banned in Japan.
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4. King Tutankhamun’s mummy had an erect penis

Though I highly doubt that the spirit of the teen pharaoh had anything thing to do with it. The people mummifying his body most probably kept the organ on a vertical position. “Why,” is your food for thought.
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5. Lord Carnarvon, who provided the finances for the excavation of Tutankhamun’s pyramid, died of blood poisoning only a few months after the tomb was opened

Apparently, even his pet dog, who was at his home in England, dropped dead at the same moment. And this incident added fuel to the roaring fire of assumptions about the curse of the pharaohs.
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6. Sir Bruce Ingham was presented with a mummified hand from King Tut’s pyramid by his friend Howard Carter

A bracelet around the wrist of that hand had “Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water and pestilence.” engraved on it. Ingham’s house completely burnt down in a fire, and the remains were washed away by a flood.
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7. Fag el-Gamous, an ancient Egyptian burial ground for common people, contains the naturally mummified bodies of over a million people

Which is a surprisingly large number for such a small burial ground, and archaeologists are still baffled about what might have caused the entire situation.
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8. There’s a 9th-century cemetery called Chauchilla in Peru that is home for hundreds of crouched Nasca mummies

Like Egyptian pyramids, the graves in this cemetery had plenty of offerings to help the dead pass the time comfortably. The mummies in this cemetery were so well preserved because of the extensive use of resins to keep away worms and the arid climate and soil that helped in natural mummification.
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9. The Egyptians found antibiotic beers almost 2000 years back and used it to make better mummies

Clever as they were, they found both antibiotics and the use of it. They got tetracycline out of fermented grain in the form of beer. They would start drinking the antibiotic-laced beer around age two, continuing throughout their lives, so that even their mummies were pretty healthy.
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Told you, ancient people were really weird!

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