Geek Trivia: Fathers of the mummy

by Jay Garmon | Mar 13, 2007 12:00:00 AM

Tags: Jay Garmon, mummification, Egyptian, Geek Trivia Newsletter, Body, TechRepublic Inc., Culture, Fortran, Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Egyptians, Chinchorros, Nothing, Crowther, Programming Languages, Productivity, Software Development, Software/Web Development

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Takeaway: What ancient people was the first culture known to practice mummification?

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines mummy as "a body embalmed or treated for burial with preservatives in the manner of the ancient Egyptians" or "a body unusually well preserved."

In a technical sense, virtually anybody (which is to say, any body) that has undergone an appreciable preservation process�intentional or accidental�can claim mummy status, from the classic cloth-wrapped Egyptian examples to bodies inadvertently preserved by virtue of being buried in salt-rich soil or permafrost. (One should also note that "body" doesn't necessarily mean "human," as the Egyptians notably mummified cats in large numbers.)

In common usage, however, mummification refers to an overt act of ritual preservation of human remains, and the Egyptians certainly possessed some of the most well-known examples of this practice (though Hollywood arguably has as much to do with this notoriety as actual cultural import). Indeed, in March 2003, scientists uncovered what they believed to be the earliest evidence yet of Egyptian mummification: A wooden coffin buried outside Cairo perhaps 5,000 years ago.

Yet, just as Egypt is home to the most famous�but certainly not the only�monument pyramids, other cultures have also practiced mummification. In fact, some such rituals date back thousands of years even outside the Land of the Nile.

Discoveries on the Scottish isle of South Uist suggest that ancient Britons practiced ritual mummification 3,000 years ago, using the curative properties of local peat bogs to preserve bodies. Similarly, history also recognizes the Inca of Peru for the practice of mummification�and its worship of mummified ancestors�as noted by Spanish conquerors in the 16th century.

However, the Incas were among the last�not the first�South American culture to practice mummification, as that continent was home to the first people ever to mummify its dead, centuries before the Egyptians.

WHAT ANCIENT PEOPLES WERE THE FIRST CULTURE KNOWN TO PRACTICE MUMMIFICATION?

What ancient South American group was the first known culture to perform ritual mummification, a tribe that did so centuries before the Egyptians first began such practices?

Roughly 7,000 years ago, or two millennia before the oldest known Egyptian mummy, a small Andean tribe called the Chinchorros began to mummify its dead using elaborate preparatory processes. Though some naturally occurring mummies (dried by the hot winds of Chile's Atacama Desert) have been associated with the Chinchorros, archaeologists have discovered many intentionally preserved Chinchorro mummies�the earliest dating back to 5050 B.C.

The Chinchorro mummification techniques largely involved preserving the skeleton of a deceased tribe member and "rebuilding" the individual using ritually applied natural materials as well as sculpted clay fixtures and adornments. Perhaps most strikingly, the Chinchorros "painted" a large number of mummies using red or black dyes or simple mud, and the progression between dyeing techniques has been helpful in tracking the timeline of Chinchorro mummification practices.

Among the more striking differences between Chinchorro mummification practices and those of other ancient cultures is the broad spectrum of society represented by its mummies. Virtually every Chinchorro was eligible (for lack of a better term) for mummification, including stillborn children. While Egyptian mummification was largely an expensive, status-based privilege reserved for elites, Chinchorro mummification was for everyone.

As for the living Chinchorros, they were a coastal fishing tribe native to a 400-mile stretch of land that falls into modern-day Chile and Peru. Anthropologists believe the mummification practice to be part of the Chinchorros' cultural ancestor worship, but specifics are difficult to come by since the tribe's mummification practices died out in the first century B.C.

Other tribes, notably the Incas, continued their own mummification practices right up until the Spanish invasions of South America in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Surviving examples of both tribes' ritual mortuary practices show that South America�not Egypt�is the true motherland of the mummy. That's not just ancient history, that's some tomb-raider-worthy Geek Trivia.

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The Quibble of the Week

If you uncover a questionable fact or debatable aspect of this week's Geek Trivia, just post it in the discussion area of the article. Every week, yours truly will choose the best post from the assembled masses and discuss it in the next edition of Geek Trivia.

This week's quibble comes from the March 7 edition of Geek Trivia, "The cheat goes on." TechRepublic member bixbyru refused to accept my pronouncement that the original version of the video game Adventure was lost to history.

"The original Fortran version of Adventure appears on the DECUS PDP-10 and PDP-11 tapes from that period, which are still floating around on the Net. Nothing's lost 'til the oldsters are dead, and we ain't dead yet."

I'll concede half the point�there are Fortran versions of Adventure floating around. However, the guy who wrote the very first one, Will Crowther, has stated explicitly that the 1.0 incarnation of Adventure is lost to antiquity (which is what I said in the article). Crowther's coworker Don Woods wrote the oldest surviving version of Adventure�in Fortran, no less�but it wasn't the first.

Still, glad to know the old guard is still standing vigil over the classics. Keep it up, and keep those quibbles coming.

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The Trivia Geek, also known as Jay Garmon, is a former advertising copywriter and Web developer who's duped TechRepublic into underwriting his affinity for movies, sci-fi, comic books, technology, and all things geekish or subcultural.

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