My neighbor just moved into the apartment upstairs, and as he was moving some furniture around, he found a dead cat pinned behind a couch.
This was no ordinary dead cat- this cat was mummified, naturally. We have no idea how long this cat had been dead there, but it is completely devoid of…
Well, it’s essentially skin with some fur, stratched over bones.
It’s really cool. Its face is frozen in an eternal scream.
Well, I am a taxidermist and i like this kind of stuff, so he let me keep it.
Now i am studying it, and i would like to make more of these.
I would never intentionally kill any animal, though, especially just to make a mummy.
The animals I use are either roadkill or I order them from a scientific supply company, who have dead lab rats for dissection.
Now my question:
Since I don’t have the best chances of finding a dead cat that died of natural causes, my next best idea would be a mummified rat.
So I wonder how to do this. Do I soak it in salt? How long will it take?
And then-
These rats come in a bucket of formaldehyde.
What effects will formaldehyde have on the mummification process?
The Learning Channel recently aired a series on mummies. It might still be playing. I believe the first episode showed a doctor mummifying a human corpse. Since I have no interest in making a muumy I didn’t write down the directions, but this is what I remember:
There is a substance whose name I don’t remember that occurs naturally in the Egyptian desert. It’s basically a mixture of salts, baking soda and something else. I’m sure you can find it by doing a google search on mummification.
Insert a rod through a nostril and break into the brainpan. Use a tool that’s kind of like a bent wire hanger to whip the brain into a liquid. Pour it out the nose.
Remove the internal organs (to be preserved and stored in canopic jars). Wash the interior of the corpse with palm wine and mhyrr. (Just got out of bed and I can hardly type. I’m not checking my spelling.)
Cover the body with the substance I mentioned and keep in a low-humidity room (<10%) at about 105º for about 35 days. Arrange the arms and cover with the stuff for another couple of weeks.
Wrap in linen.
As I said, I’m going from memory having just become conscious a few ,minutes ago. Better watch the TLC program.
I believe the salt is Natron salts. Back when Spritle was a teacher, he bought a video (poor quality) that documented the entire process. This might be what was shown on the Discovery chan. Since Spritle is the only person in Maryland who does not have cable, he wouldn’t know.
When I left teaching, I left the video. Otherwise, I’d loan it to you.
There’s a fair description of the process here, including the mix of salts that make up natron. Note that the body cavity should be filled with bags of the salt mixture–otherwise there will be a tendency for decay to set in due to the remaining moisture.
These people have a rather disturbing idea of research. Ick.
The Learning Channel’s series mentioned a number of different means of mummification. One of the really cool ways is wax. I don’t remember exactly how they did this, but with (I believe) Eva Peron’s corpse, they got all the liquid out of her cells and replaced it with wax. It was pretty cool. Here’s the website for the show: http://tlc.discovery.com/tlcpages/mummies/mummies.html but I couldn’t find the videos available for sale when I glanced through the site. If you can find them, or if the show airs again, I highly recommend it – I’m not into mummies at all, but these shows were fascinating!
More along the lines of what you’re looking for, a natural mummification process. You think the cat just kind of dried out on its own, without being stored in a vat of salt.
In Mexico there is a region (in the baja I think) where they have natural mummies. The air is so dry, they bury bodies in a big crypt and they naturally dry out and mummify, no efforts at removing body organs and such. Really ugly looking results, and it takes time, but they are preserved.
Sorry I don’t have a better reference. Basically really dry air at high temperatures.
A separate mummification process involves encasing in a glacier. See http://www.talkorigins.org and look up mammoths.
The mummies of Ürümchi were mummified naturally through nothing more than an arid climate. They are up to 3800+ years old and some of them came out looking like they had just gone to sleep.
The earliest Egyptian mummies, in pre-Pharaonic times, were also nothing more than corpses buried in the arid desert soil. No special process needed.
