Oldest known mummification how-to guide reveals gruesome embalming details

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An ancient Egyptian papyrus version of "Mummification for Dummies" has been revealed by a Danish Egyptologist as the oldest how-to guide yet found.

The detailed instructions on the circa 3,500-year-old item adds details to the only two other guides known — and predates them by more than 1,000 years. The papyrus is more than 19 feet long, according to a release from the University of Copenhagen. 

Known as the Papyrus Louvre-Carlsberg manuscript, the papyrus had been split in two, with one piece at the Louvre Museum in Paris and the other in the University of Copenhagen’s Papyrus Carlsberg Collection.

The two pieces previously belonged to private collectors and several parts of the sheet are still missing.

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The mummy of Ramses II (1301-1235 BC), son of Sethy I, in April 2006, at Cairo Museum, Egypt. The mummy was discovered with the other royal mummies in the Deir el Bahari hiding place by Maspero, Ahmed Bey Kamal and Brugsch Bey. (Photo by Patrick Landmann/Getty Images)

This is the first time the Copenhagen half, which adds gruesome details on embalming mummies to the Paris half, has been translated, Live Science reported. 

Written evidence on ancient Egyptian embalming methods is scarce, as mummification was considered a sacred art for an elite few and Egyptologists believe the practice was mainly passed down by word of mouth, the university's release said. 

Only two other ancient mummification guides have previously been found.

The new manuscript gives "extremely detailed" descriptions that were left out of the previous discoveries, including the process of embalming the person’s face.

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"We get a list of ingredients for a remedy consisting largely of plant-based aromatic substances and binders that are cooked into a liquid, with which the embalmers coat a piece of red linen," Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt, from the University of Copenhagen, said in the release.

Schiødt teased details from the papyrus translated for her Ph.D. thesis, which will be published in full next year.

"The red linen is then applied to the dead person’s face in order to encase it in a protective cocoon of fragrant and anti-bacterial matter," she continued. 

Schiødt added the guide specifies the embalmer must work on the corpse every four days, which would be marked by a ritual procession of the body for a total of 17 processions.

"In between the four-day intervals, the body was covered with cloth and overlaid with straw infused with aromatics to keep away insects and scavengers," she added.

The mummy was finished on day 68 and then "placed in the coffin, after which the final days were spent on ritual activities allowing the deceased to live on in the afterlife," Schiødt wrote.

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The embalming section is only part of the information included on the papyrus, which also gives details on ancient Egyptian medical recipes, herbs and skin diseases, Live Science reported.