Aug 1, 2009
Mummies Only Look Like They’re Screaming
Today’s idea: Ancient mummies look like they’re screaming because their jaws weren’t held securely in place the way they are in modern mortuary practice. And so decomposing jaws dropped to horrifying effect.
Archaeology | It’s an open question whether this insight will demystify campfire storytelling of a summer’s eve, or heighten its creepiness. But writing in Archeaology magazine, Mark Rose has a gruesome mystery to explore: Why do mummies scream, or at least look like they’re screaming? His answer: “It certainly is not because their face was frozen instantly in the middle of a horrific, agonized death.”
Rather, he says, it’s often because the burial procedures of earlier times — “whether a chin strap in Victorian days or the elaborate mummification process of New Kingdom Egypt” — weren’t as effective as the modern technique of securing the jaw with a needle and thread. The old methods typically gave way over time. And, as a doctor notes in the article, “if unimpeded — by the position of the body, wrappings, or very fast desiccation — the jaw will drop down as the muscles relax and decompose after rigor mortis,” leaving a visage that could haunt many a nightmare.
Sort of like that fellow coming up behind you, just beyond the glow of the campfire. [Archaeology]
Archaeology | It’s an open question whether this insight will demystify campfire storytelling of a summer’s eve, or heighten its creepiness. But writing in Archeaology magazine, Mark Rose has a gruesome mystery to explore: Why do mummies scream, or at least look like they’re screaming? His answer: “It certainly is not because their face was frozen instantly in the middle of a horrific, agonized death.”
Rather, he says, it’s often because the burial procedures of earlier times — “whether a chin strap in Victorian days or the elaborate mummification process of New Kingdom Egypt” — weren’t as effective as the modern technique of securing the jaw with a needle and thread. The old methods typically gave way over time. And, as a doctor notes in the article, “if unimpeded — by the position of the body, wrappings, or very fast desiccation — the jaw will drop down as the muscles relax and decompose after rigor mortis,” leaving a visage that could haunt many a nightmare.
Sort of like that fellow coming up behind you, just beyond the glow of the campfire. [Archaeology]