Mummification Practices at Kellis Site in Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis

A total of 49 Late Ptolemaic-Roman Period mummies excavated from Kellis-1 cemetery at Ismant el-Kharab in Egypt's Dakhleh Oasis were examined by gross dissection in 1993 and 1998. Of these, 35 were sufficiently intact to reconstruct their mummification methodology. Most of these bodies had been looted at least once in antiquity with consequent damage to their integrity. The bodies of three bundles were found to be completely skeletonized. In the remaining 32, twenty had become mummified spontaneously secondary to environmental conditions. In these, some desiccated viscera were found within the body cavities. The remaining 12 had been mummified anthropogenically. These had been eviscerated, usually via an abdominal incision, and resin had been applied liberally, both internally and externally to these bodies. No evidence of natron desiccation was evident in either group. In many of each group, ancient efforts to reconstruct looted, fragmented bodies were encountered, both with and without the use of resin. Some reconstructions included resin introduction into the body cavities of spontaneously mummified bodies via atypical ports, while others involved the employment of body parts from more than one mummy. As a result, a total of seven distinct patterns of mummification were encountered among these 35 bodies. Familiarity with visceral alteration patterns that occur in spontaneously mummified bodies was key to unraveling the sometimes bizarre procedures inflicted on some of these bodies during postburial looting and mummy reconstruction efforts. The anthropogenic mummification methods were similar to those of contemporary burials in the Nile valley and at the Kharga Oasis.