Kinds of Mummies/What did they mummify?
A mummy is the body of a person or animal that was preserved after death. Most of the time the bodies were so well wrapped that we could tell how they looked in life. When a person would die, bacteria and other germs would eat the soft tissues, leaving the bones. Embalming is how the people preserve the dead.
The best preserved mummies were the pharaohs and any of their relatives. Three famous Egyptian mummies were Tutankhamen, Seti I, and Rameses II (Rameses the Great). Seti I is the father of Rameses II. Rameses ruled Egypt for 67 years. He was 6 feet tall. Tut's tomb was found in 1922 by Howard Carter. The embalmers set up workshops near the tombs. The pharaohs who were to become gods when they died, had the most magnificent burials.
It took about 70 days to embalm a body. Some mummies were plundered in ancient times by grave robbers and vandals looking for treasures wrapped up in the bandages. Egyptian mummies have been found in many places, from Greenland to China to the Andes Mountains of South America.
References:
http://www.si.umich.0.edu/CHICO/mummy/
