The allure of mummies NOVA: Why do you think people are so fascinated by mummies? Salima Ikram: Part of it is, of course, all that horror movie business.

• Tales Of Ancient Egypt Study Guide

The idea of the supernatural, which is very linked with ancient Egypt, attracts a lot of attention. And children love going to mummy galleries because they think, 'Oooh, it's really creepy.

They might jump up and get us!' What's the allure of mummies for Egyptologists? Well, I think one reason is very basic: here we are, studying Tuthmosis III, reading his words on temple walls, and you can actually look at him!

You can see the man himself—his hair, his arms. It's quite amazing to look at the face of someone who lived so many thousands of years ago. It's quite thrilling. There's also a lot that we can learn from mummies about ancient disease, medical practices, technology, health, diet, as well as religious beliefs. So we are filling in a huge amount of cultural and social history.

Is it fair to say that the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death? I think they were obsessed with life!

They knew that the life they had on Earth was going to be of limited duration. Most Egyptians died by the time they were 40.

So they wanted to have a better afterlife. What you see in the tombs is a really careful preparation for eternity, so that everyone would have a very good time. What did they think the afterlife would be like?

It varied depending on whether you were royal or nonroyal. If you were nonroyal, you would have all the best things available in the Egypt that you lived in, with none of the nastiness. And if you were poor, you could come back much wealthier. For kings, though, while they could enjoy all the best food and drink and entertainment, they also became one with the gods. They would sail across the sky with the sun god, Re, fighting against the powers of evil and darkness, trying to make the world safe for mankind and making sure that Egypt continued on forever. What did they want in their tombs to take with them to the afterlife?

In both royal and nonroyal tombs, you get a lot of everyday items—all kinds of furniture, beds, chairs. There'd be jewelry, clothes, makeup, and lots and lots of food and wine and beer. In Tutankhamun's tomb, there's even one of his camping beds that folds up so he could take it when he was going out into the desert.

'Everyone wanted to be mummified as elaborately as possible. Of course, not everyone could afford an equal kind of afterworld.' Did they bury pets in their tombs? Sometimes a dog is buried with a person, even in the same coffin. At other times, the animals outlived their owners, and so they were buried outside the tomb. We have baboons and other monkeys and even horses buried in the courtyard of their owners' tombs. Did they also bury—even sacrifice—servants?

During the First Dynasty of Egypt c. 2920-2900 B.C., you actually have servant burials. This was only done for kings. Some of the chosen servants would be put to death and buried around the king's tomb. These people were supposed to be very privileged, because they would have a super afterlife with the king and the sun god. After the First Dynasty, instead of killing off people, they would have images—statues of their servants.

Or they would write down the names of the people who were to come join them in the afterlife. Saving body and soul Why did the ancient Egyptians mummify bodies? According to their religion, when you died, your soul continued. But unlike in a lot of modern religions, your soul was not just a formless thing. It actually could animate a statue of the dead person, or much better, the body of the dead person. And that's why mummification took place, so that the body would be preserved to host the soul.

How do we know about the techniques they used? People always talk about 'the secret of mummification.' And in a way, it's true, because the Egyptians never left behind an instruction manual telling us the step-by-step method of how you go about embalming someone.

Some of what we know about how people and animals were mummified comes from the fifth-century B.C. Historian Herodotus, who wrote in detail about mummification. And, of course, you can learn a lot by looking at mummies themselves, and by doing chemical analyses on resins and other materials used in the embalming process. Did the techniques vary over time? Mummification lasted over 3,000 years, and over time, there were several developments. Also, during some periods, you could have two or three different kinds of mummification; it just depended on what style you chose or how much you wanted to spend.

Sometimes people would be completely eviscerated, sometimes they wouldn't. In some instances, instead of making an evisceration cut and removing organs by hand, embalmers used an enema of juniper oil to dissolve the internal organs. So there was a vast variety of ways of mummifying people. For details on how mummies were fashioned, see.

Can you date a mummy by looking at it? To some extent, it is possible.

Tales Of Ancient Egypt Study Guide

Obviously one can't always be 100 percent sure. But there are stylistic clues. Arm positions, where the embalming incision is, the size of the incision, what's used inside the body, if they stuff the body, if they don't stuff the body, if they gild the face, and details like that do tip one off. 'In the Victorian era, when anything neo-Gothic was cool, unwrapping mummies became very stylish.' Was everyone in ancient Egypt mummified? Everyone wanted to be mummified as elaborately as possible and be put in nice tombs, so they could go to the afterworld. Now, of course, not everyone could afford an equal kind of afterworld.

The elite got to have a very plush existence. And poorer people would probably compensate by having prayers and incantations said at the funeral that would speed them to a wonderful afterlife. How many human mummies were made in ancient Egypt? Some people estimate 70 million mummies, but I think that's an underestimate. Mummification was carried out in Egypt, as I mentioned, for over 3,000 years. I'm sure more human mummies were made during this time period.

If you look at animal mummies, several hundred thousand mummies have been found even in one cemetery. Related Links.

See a collection of some of ancient Egypt's most remarkably preserved mummies. How did ancient Egyptians prepare a body for burial? Witness the elaborate process of mummification in this slide show.

What is a mummy? Get a primer on mummies worldwide—from ancient Egypt to the Incan Andes to the peat bogs of Eu. On this map of Northwest Europe, see where preserved corpses have been discovered and examine a dozen spectacular finds. With 360-degree and other imagery, walk around the Sphinx, enter the Great Pyramid, visit tombs and temples, and more.