The Mummy Congress

Pringle, Heather

ISBN 10: 1565114655 ISBN 13: 9781565114654

Publisher: HighBridge Company, 2001

Synopsis

Journeys across five continents for a comprehensive exploration of 7,000 years of mummy history, covering mummy veneration, mummy collectors, mummy diseases, bog mummies, political mummies, mummy "recipes," and contemporary commercial mummification services.

About this title

Review:

Mummies fascinate us. As we peer at their withered flesh, we are glimpsing a type of immortality. Heather Pringle tells the stories of some of these "frail elders"--and the scientists who study them--in The Mummy Congress.

Pringle details the tension between the preservationists, who want to protect the ancient dead and refuse to unwrap them, and the dissectionists, who see mummies as a repository of scientific data waiting to be studied. She also introduces the reader to the preserved dead from around the world--from the bog bodies of northern Europe to the mysterious Caucasian-looking mummies from China's Tarim Basin, from Egyptians in linen shrouds to incorruptible Christian saints, and from Lenin in his Moscow mausoleum to Incan children found on Andean mountaintops.

Peppered with fascinating snippets of information--for example, for centuries artists were sold on a pigment called "mummy," a transparent brown made from ground-up mummies--The Mummy Congress makes for lively, if somewhat ghoulish reading. Highly recommended. --Sunny Delaney

About the Author:

Heather Pringle is a journalist and writer who has written on archaeology and ancient cultures in numerous magazines including Discover, National Geographic Traveler, New Scientist, Science, and Geo. She is also the author of two books, including In Search of ancient North America. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.

About this edition

• Publisher: HighBridge Company
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1565114655
• ISBN 13: 9781565114654
• Binding: Audio CD
• Number of pages: 285