Image: Researchers analyzed embalming content from the neck of this Ancient Egyptian mummy, which was acquired by a French museum in 1837.
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Credit history: Frédérique Vincent, ethnographic conservator
Historical Egyptian mummies have quite a few tales to tell, but unlocking their strategies with no destroying delicate stays is demanding. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry have observed a non-destructive way to analyze bitumen — the compound that presents mummies their dark color — in Ancient Egyptian embalming supplies. The process offers clues to the bitumen’s geographic origin and, in 1 experiment, unveiled that a mummy in a French museum could have been partially restored, probable by collectors.
The embalming content used by Historic Egyptians was a elaborate mixture of natural compounds this sort of as sugar gum, beeswax, fats, coniferous resins and variable quantities of bitumen. Also identified as asphalt or tar, bitumen is a black, highly viscous sort of petroleum that occurs largely from fossilized algae and crops. Scientists have used a variety of techniques to examine Historical Egyptian embalming materials, but they ordinarily require preparing and separation steps that wipe out the sample. Charles Dutoit, Didier Gourier and colleagues questioned if they could use a non-damaging system called electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to detect two parts of bitumen shaped through the decomposition of photosynthetic existence: vanadyl porphyrins and carbonaceous radicals, which could provide facts on the existence, origin and processing of bitumen in the embalming material.
The scientists attained samples of black make a difference from an Historical Egyptian sarcophagus (or coffin), two human mummies and 4 animal mummies (all from 744-30 B.C.), which they analyzed by EPR and when compared to reference bitumen samples. The staff learned that the relative quantities of vanadyl compounds and carbonaceous radicals could differentiate involving bitumen of maritime origin (these types of as from the Lifeless Sea) and land-plant origin (from a tar pit). Also, they detected vanadyl compounds that probable formed from reactions between the vanadyl porphyrins and other embalming components. Intriguingly, the black make a difference taken from a human mummy obtained by a French museum in 1837 failed to contain any of these compounds, and it was pretty wealthy in bitumen. This mummy could have been partly restored with pure bitumen, possibly by a private collector to fetch a better cost just before the museum acquired it, the researchers say.
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The authors admit funding from Agence Nationale de la Recherche and the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France.
The summary that accompanies this paper is obtainable in this article.
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