Birth of the mummy

taken from the Book of Facts
written by Readers Digest




the word mummy, for the embalmed bodies of Egyptian notables does not come from Egypt, or even from the Arab world. it is thought to derived from a Persian word mummia, meaning 'bitumen' or 'tar'. Mummies were so named because ancient peoples who came across the age - blackened corpses believed wrongly that the bodies were a source of tar.