When you think of a mummy what comes to mind? Most of us usually picture an Egyptian mummy wrapped in bandages and buried deep inside a pyramid. While the Egyptian ones are the most famous, mummies have been found in many places throughout the world, from Greenland to China to the Andes Mountains of South America. __小题1: ____ A mummy is the body of a person that has been preserved after death. Normally when we die, bacteria and other germs eat away at the soft tissues (such as skin and muscles) leaving only the bones behind. Since bacteria need water in order to grow, mummification usually happens if the body dries out quickly after death. The body may then be so well preserved that we can even tell how the dead person may have looked in life. __小题2: ____ Mummies are made naturally or by embalming（以香油涂尸防腐）, which is any process that people use to help preserve a dead body. Mummies can be dried out by extreme cold, by the sun, by smoke, or using chemicals such as natron（氧化钠）. Some bodies become mummies because there were favorable natural conditions when they died. Others were preserved and buried with great care. __小题3: ____ The ancient Egyptians believed that mummifying a person's body after death was essential to ensure a safe passage to the afterlife. Over time almost all Egyptians who could afford to became mummies when they died -- a total of about 70 million mummies in 3,000 years. By the 4th century AD, many Egyptians had become Christians and no longer believed that mummification was necessary for life after death. Eventually, the Egyptians gave up the art and science of making mummies. __小题4: ____ So where did all the mummies go? Sadly, most were grabbed in ancient times by robbers looking for treasures wrapped up in the bandages. Countless mummies were also destroyed during the Middle Ages, when they were ground into powders to make supposedly magical pills. Later on, modern treasure hunters rushed into their tombs carelessly looking for artifacts and souvenirs. Even industry aided the destruction by using mummies' bandages to make paper or burning their bodies for fuel. __小题5: ____ The best preserved mummies are those of the pharoahs and their relatives. These mummies tended to be more carefully embalmed and protected from harm. The mummies that have survived allow us to look back into the past and know something of the ancient Egyptians and their time. Three of the most famous Egyptians mummies are Tutankhamen, Seti I and Rameses II (Ramses the Great). |