Synopsis
The Mummy Congress takes us on a journey over five continents and back nearly 7,000 years. Pringle tells how mummies have been venerated as saints, fought over by politicians, collected as artistic treasures and investigated for clues to ancient civilization's drug use. In these pages lie child mummies of northern Chile, preserved household pets of ancient Egypt and the new crop of mummification services being hyped on the internet. A powerful and stimulating look at mummies, The Mummy Congress also turns our vision inwards towards our fears of mortality and our dreams of eternal life.
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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, a frequent contributor to Discover magazine, has also published dozens of articles in Science, Stern, Geo, New Scientist, National Geographic Traveler, Islands, and Texas Monthly. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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