How were mummies made? . . . Mummifying
the body required many steps and took about 70 days to
complete. This process evolved over hundreds of years. The
photo below right, is the mummy of a falcon.
First, the embalmers removed some of the internal
organs.
The next step was drying out the body itself. This
took about 35-40 days. The body was covered with a salt
called natron .
Once the body was dried, it was wrapped with linen
bandages. The wrappings were applied in many layers; the
layers covering a king might number 20-80! This process
probably took 15 days or more.
The wrappings covered the jewelry buried on the dead
person, and tucked among the linen wrappings were amulets
to protect him. Now the body was protected from decay and
evil spirits!
The mummy was then placed in a coffin or nest of
coffins to protect it even further!