Alan Billis of the
UK donated his body
to be mummified.The accurate formula of how to make
an ancient Egyptian mummy has been
lost over the years, but taxi driver Alan
Billis’ mummified body will contribute to
changing that. He has been embalmed in
liquid salt instead of the dry soda mixture,
which experts originally believed that the
Egyptians used. Scientists became aware of thealternative method during X-ray examinations,
as they discovered salt deposits in an Egyptian
mummy’s tissue – which would have been
impossible, if the mummy had been embalmed
in dry soda. Testing liquid brines on pig bodies,
they found that the method left salt deposits in
the tissue. The Alan Billis experiment will
confirm the result with a human body.Taxi Driver Uncovers
Mummy Secret
Organ removal
1 Scientists remove Alan Billis’ internal organs and disinfect body cavities using
resin, etc. Herbs and sawdust are sewn into
the stomach, so the body keeps its shape.Brine for 35 days
2 The body is immersed into brine for days to drain the tissue and kill bacteria.^35
The brine consists of sodium carbonate,
sodium sulphate, bicarbonate, and chloride.Drying and wrapping
3 The body is dried for two weeks in a chamber which imitates the warm, dry
Egyptian climate, and after being wrapped in
linen, it is dried for another six weeks.3
“Egyptian blue”, the favourite colour of Ancient Egypt,
adorned statues and reliefs anywhere on the Nile, but over
the centuries, the colour mixture was forgotten, and the
bright hues faded into an unrecognizable shade of green.
Now, scientists have developed a camera which can detect
the electromagnetic waves emitted by “Egyptian blue”,
that come close to the infrared spectrum. The camera
depicts the colour, which consists of calcium, quartz,
copper, and alkaline salt, as particularly bright areas.Infrared camera identifi es
Egypt's favourite colour4 NORMAL LIGHT INFRARED LIGHT
EGYPTIAN BLUE EGYPTIAN BLUELIGHTS UP.POTENTIAL: A more realistic impression of Egypt's art treasures.
CHALLENGE: There's no surviving point of reference. Scientists
must proceed by trial and error.RITZAU/PA/BLINK FILMS/MIKKEL JUUL JENSEN
J. STENGER/YALE UNIVERSITYPOTENTIAL: Could disclose
the original formula of
ancient Egyptian
mummies.
CHALLENGE: Many years
will pass, before scientists
can make any final
conclusions based on
Billis' mummy.scienceillustrated.com.au | 61