MUMMIES

Mummy (plural mummies) is most often defined as a dead human or animal that, after death, has been deprived of its internal organs through appropriate surgical procedures, and then has been preserved and bandaged. Although mummies are found by historians and archaeologists on virtually every continent except Antarctica, Egyptian mummies are undoubtedly the most famous. Of course, the mummification process in ancient Egyptian culture was closely related to the belief in an afterlife, and the oldest mummies are certified as early as the second dynasty, i.e. around 2800 BC! However, in the nineteenth century, as a result of the birth of Egyptology in Europe and the increasingly better knowledge of the culture and civilization of ancient Egypt, mummies attracted many writers and authors of literature, which we define today as fantastic. Interestingly, in the early nineteenth century, mummies were almost always female and most often presented in a love context, i.e. even death could not break true love. However, already in the middle of this century, mummies began to be bloodthirsty beasts, driven only by the lust for murder against those who violated their resting place. As a curiosity, even Edgar Allan Poe used the mummy in one of his stories.