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The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead
When acclaimed science journalist Heather Pringle was dispatched to a remote part of northern Chile to cover a little-known scientific conference, she found herself in the midst of the most passionate gathering of her working life -- dozens of mummy experts lodged in a rambling seaside hotel, battling over the implications of their latest discoveries. Infected with their mania, Pringle spent the next year circling the globe, stopping in to visit the leading scientists so she could see firsthand the breathtaking delicacy and unexpected importance of their work.In The Mummy Congress, she recounts the intriguing findings from her travels, bringing to life the hitherto unknown worlds of the long-dead, and revealing what mummies have to tell us about ourselves. Pringle's journeys lead her to the lifelike remains of medieval saints entombed in Italy's grand cathedrals, eerily preserved bog bodies in the Netherlands bearing signs of violent and untimely slaughter, and frozen Inca princess glimpsed for the first time atop icy mountains. She learns of the extraordinary skills of ancient Egyptian embalmers capable of preserving bodies, in the words of one mummy expert, "until the end of time"; of the horrifying sacrifices made by ancient South Americans to pacify their gods; and of the weird mummified parasites, preserved in the guts of millennia-old bodies, that still wreak havoc across the world today.
Ranging from the famous excavation of Tutankhamen to tales of ascetic Japanese monks trying to mummify themselves, and from the Russians' terrified attempts to embalm the body of Stalin to the fleeting craze for public mummy unwrappings in nineteenth-century New Orleans, The Mummy Congress demonstrates that our own obsession with the preserved dead has a long and bizarre history. Packed with extraordinary stories and narrated with great humor and verve, The Mummy Congress is a compelling and entertaining journey into the world of the everlasting dead.
Ranging from the famous excavation of Tutankhamen to tales of ascetic Japanese monks trying to mummify themselves, and from the Russians' terrified attempts to embalm the body of Stalin to the fleeting craze for public mummy unwrappings in nineteenth-century New Orleans, The Mummy Congress demonstrates that our own obsession with the preserved dead has a long and bizarre history. Packed with extraordinary stories and narrated with great humor and verve, The Mummy Congress is a compelling and entertaining journey into the world of the everlasting dead.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
November 29, 2011
Creepy yet very informative. The kind of information that you can get only from actually reading a book. You see, there is not too many mummy experts in this world.
Mummy experts are those who work on this solitary and thankless job: studying the mummies around the world. They dissect the long-dead and determine how long they have been dead, what was done to their body that they were able to defy the natural process of decomposition, the cause of their deaths, etc. In doing these, they hope to unlock the secret of body preservation and hopefully to also discover some knowledge of how they, our forefathers, lived their lives.
They love mummies as Heather Pringle, Canadian non-fiction writer, journalist and archeologist, wrote: ”Mummies have always spoken to us on some deep primal level, and we are simply unable to leave them alone. We love them and we fear them, we aspire to be them and we dread that fate. But one thing is certain: we are powerless to resist their potent appeal" (pp. 338-39).
The story started with the mummy congress in Arica, Chile (where the earliest known mummies, the Chinchorro, 5000 to 3000 B.C was examined) and ended with Pringle, looking forward to the next congress in Netherland. In between, were her trips to the mausoleum in Italy where the medieval saints are entombed. Then to the mummies in Netherlands were the long-dead seemed to have the marks of brutal deaths. Then to Peru where they studied the mummy of an Inca princess that was preserved in ice. The book also mentioned the different ancient ways in preserving the body some even used some parasites to prevent the composition, some used quick-freezing (cryogenics), some used complete dehydration and some used unknown herbs and chemicals like the Egyptian mummies.
I used to think that this kind of practice was only done in Africa or Middle East. This book taught me that there were also mummies in North America, Alaska, Europe and Japan. I was waiting for Pringle to mention the Philippine mummies lying in the hanging coffins in Sagada, Mountain Province but she did not. In fact, the only mummy that I’ve seen with my own two eyes was the centuries-old mummy that is on display in the Provincial Capitol of Benguet in La Trinidad when I was in college. The mummy is in a glass case and sitting all by herself under the map of Benguet at the lobby of the provincial hall.
There is also a chapter on the preservation of Lenin’s body during the Russian Revolution. This reminded me of the preserved body of Mao Tse Tung that I saw during my visit to Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 2001. Here in the Philippines, the body of the former President Ferdinand Marcos is still to be buried 22 years after his death in Hawaii in 1989.
For those who love zombies, I suggest that they try this book. The mummies look like zombies. The only difference is that they don't move and chase you. Rather, you will learn a lot about the long-dead instead of the fictional un-dead. You will get scared too but not silly scared. Rather the smart scared.
Mummy experts are those who work on this solitary and thankless job: studying the mummies around the world. They dissect the long-dead and determine how long they have been dead, what was done to their body that they were able to defy the natural process of decomposition, the cause of their deaths, etc. In doing these, they hope to unlock the secret of body preservation and hopefully to also discover some knowledge of how they, our forefathers, lived their lives.
They love mummies as Heather Pringle, Canadian non-fiction writer, journalist and archeologist, wrote: ”Mummies have always spoken to us on some deep primal level, and we are simply unable to leave them alone. We love them and we fear them, we aspire to be them and we dread that fate. But one thing is certain: we are powerless to resist their potent appeal" (pp. 338-39).
The story started with the mummy congress in Arica, Chile (where the earliest known mummies, the Chinchorro, 5000 to 3000 B.C was examined) and ended with Pringle, looking forward to the next congress in Netherland. In between, were her trips to the mausoleum in Italy where the medieval saints are entombed. Then to the mummies in Netherlands were the long-dead seemed to have the marks of brutal deaths. Then to Peru where they studied the mummy of an Inca princess that was preserved in ice. The book also mentioned the different ancient ways in preserving the body some even used some parasites to prevent the composition, some used quick-freezing (cryogenics), some used complete dehydration and some used unknown herbs and chemicals like the Egyptian mummies.
I used to think that this kind of practice was only done in Africa or Middle East. This book taught me that there were also mummies in North America, Alaska, Europe and Japan. I was waiting for Pringle to mention the Philippine mummies lying in the hanging coffins in Sagada, Mountain Province but she did not. In fact, the only mummy that I’ve seen with my own two eyes was the centuries-old mummy that is on display in the Provincial Capitol of Benguet in La Trinidad when I was in college. The mummy is in a glass case and sitting all by herself under the map of Benguet at the lobby of the provincial hall.
There is also a chapter on the preservation of Lenin’s body during the Russian Revolution. This reminded me of the preserved body of Mao Tse Tung that I saw during my visit to Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 2001. Here in the Philippines, the body of the former President Ferdinand Marcos is still to be buried 22 years after his death in Hawaii in 1989.
For those who love zombies, I suggest that they try this book. The mummies look like zombies. The only difference is that they don't move and chase you. Rather, you will learn a lot about the long-dead instead of the fictional un-dead. You will get scared too but not silly scared. Rather the smart scared.
March 8, 2016
Science journalist Heather Pringle provides a lively and entertaining report on the status of mummies in the new millennium. Filled with history, clever character sketches, curiosities and fascinations - the pages turn at a swift clip to address not only the Egyptian standard, but mummies from around the globe.
Were you aware of the discovery of an entire community of well-preserved Caucasian corpses (circa twenty-first century B.C.) in the northwestern corner of China? Good, because the Chinese government would prefer you not be. What's going on with Lenin's remains in light of the collapse of the Soviet Union? What about those bodies rising from the depths of Britain's bogs? The Roman Catholic Incorruptibles? Is there still a black market mummy trade? Cryogenics, anyone?
We are weird, weird people and mummies serve to celebrate this. So climb aboard the crazy train for roughly three hundred pages. Might as well have fun with it.
Were you aware of the discovery of an entire community of well-preserved Caucasian corpses (circa twenty-first century B.C.) in the northwestern corner of China? Good, because the Chinese government would prefer you not be. What's going on with Lenin's remains in light of the collapse of the Soviet Union? What about those bodies rising from the depths of Britain's bogs? The Roman Catholic Incorruptibles? Is there still a black market mummy trade? Cryogenics, anyone?
We are weird, weird people and mummies serve to celebrate this. So climb aboard the crazy train for roughly three hundred pages. Might as well have fun with it.
March 2, 2013
Once upon a time, I trained to be a bioarchaeologist in college, with a specialty in mortuary archaeology. As such, this book is certainly right up my alley - it's effectively a "How It Works" for these particular fields.
This book is a fascinating, in-depth look at the world of bioarchaeology and how it pertains to the study of ancient human remains. The focus is, as the title implies, mummies.
If you find mummies, death rituals and funerary rites, or relatable popular science tales interesting, I highly recommended this book. It's an easy read with a lot of fascinating sidepaths, and even some gorgeous, full-color photos of mummies to round it out. (Hardcover edition.)
This book is a fascinating, in-depth look at the world of bioarchaeology and how it pertains to the study of ancient human remains. The focus is, as the title implies, mummies.
If you find mummies, death rituals and funerary rites, or relatable popular science tales interesting, I highly recommended this book. It's an easy read with a lot of fascinating sidepaths, and even some gorgeous, full-color photos of mummies to round it out. (Hardcover edition.)
June 29, 2015
I bought this book because I have a passing interest in ancient civilizations and Egyptology. The title in particular is what grabbed my attention. I believe this book was written for someone with similar inclinations, NOT for the hardcore intellectual or enthusiast who professes to know all the in and outs on the subject. Keep in mind the author herself is a journalist whose interest in the subject was sparked after covering the Mummy Congress; she is not a history professor or archeologist. I found it to be a fascinating read. It touched on the interesting moral, ethical and technical aspects of uncovering the past. I found the different points of view regarding how to obtain information on the mummies fascinating; from the old school - dig em up they are not really people anymore to the respectful MRI approach. She balanced this with interesting historical information and facts about mummies.
June 4, 2017
I had no idea there would be so much to learn about mummies. The author is a freelance science writer who learns of a little-known conference, the World Conference on Mummy Studies, being held in a remote region of Chile, and promises her editor she’d bring back a story about a mummy coming to life if he sends her. That story didn’t happen, but what she does find is a passionate group of specialists devoted the preserved dead. She spends the next year visiting these scientists around the world to learn more about their work.
Her somewhat chatty writing style makes mummy science understandable to the layperson. We learn about the (sometimes questionable) relics of medieval saints preserved in European cathedrals, a frozen Inca “princess” on display in Argentina, Japanese monks who strive to mummify themselves, the Russian’s frantic attempts to keep the bodies of Lenin and Stalin viewable, what the bog bodies reveal about life and society in Northern Europe in ancient times, how Egyptian embalmers were so skilled that there are more Egyptian mummies than any museum can handle, and more. Perhaps the most gob-smacking was the Victorian pastime of attending “mummy unwrappings” during the height of Egyptomania.
The book is really about our varying degrees of comfort with death through over time and in different cultures. Some mummies, like the Inca princess and Otzi the iceman, are accidental due to climate. Others, such as King Tutankhamen and Lenin, are deliberate. All of them can reveal clues about our past. The World Conference on Mummy Studies has a Facebook page. Check it out!
Her somewhat chatty writing style makes mummy science understandable to the layperson. We learn about the (sometimes questionable) relics of medieval saints preserved in European cathedrals, a frozen Inca “princess” on display in Argentina, Japanese monks who strive to mummify themselves, the Russian’s frantic attempts to keep the bodies of Lenin and Stalin viewable, what the bog bodies reveal about life and society in Northern Europe in ancient times, how Egyptian embalmers were so skilled that there are more Egyptian mummies than any museum can handle, and more. Perhaps the most gob-smacking was the Victorian pastime of attending “mummy unwrappings” during the height of Egyptomania.
The book is really about our varying degrees of comfort with death through over time and in different cultures. Some mummies, like the Inca princess and Otzi the iceman, are accidental due to climate. Others, such as King Tutankhamen and Lenin, are deliberate. All of them can reveal clues about our past. The World Conference on Mummy Studies has a Facebook page. Check it out!
August 4, 2024
The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead by Heather Pringle was fascinating and a bit different than what I was expecting. It covers more ground and cultures and I would like to know what more research has been done since this was released 23 years ago.
September 26, 2014
There is something missing from the heart of this book, something vital that would push it over the edge and into something great. There is certainly nothing wrong with the writing, which is friendly and accurate. The descriptions and characterizations are detailed and engaging. Neither is it the topic, because Pringle found plenty of interesting and surprising anecdotes to fill the pages. Instead, I feel it was the episodic approach the book takes to the topic, moving from one variety of mummy to another and into a cultural assessment. By limiting our exposure to any one researcher and their particular specialization we are trapped in a book that essentially restarts every chapter and changes direction. The hook that all these episodes are supposed to hang on is the eponymous "Mummy Congress" in Arica, Chile, but after the first chapter the importance of the congress simply vanishes into occasional mentions. This was disappointing because the congress was what piqued my interest in the book, and I was hoping for a report from the congress, rather than it being the weak link holding the book together.
Then there is the matter of the age of the book. I hate to admit it to myself, but 2000 was a long time ago, especially for a book reporting the cutting edge of research in a field where one discovery can change everything.
Yet I really liked the episodes and meeting the people profiled throughout the book.
Then there is the matter of the age of the book. I hate to admit it to myself, but 2000 was a long time ago, especially for a book reporting the cutting edge of research in a field where one discovery can change everything.
Yet I really liked the episodes and meeting the people profiled throughout the book.
June 21, 2018
Mummies are always fascinating to me, at least in non-fiction, and this book was especially so because it covers a lot of ground, from Inca child sacrifices to Stalin to ancient bog bodies. It’s the kind of book I love, with something new (but related) in each chapter, introducing new sites and concepts I wasn’t aware of without going into any one thing exhaustively. I found myself googling for images to match the text.
The only thing I would really criticise is the hyperbolic breathlessness about how some of these mummies “look as if they were alive” or “wouldn’t look out of place on the street”. No, the preservation is amazing, but I have yet to see a mummy that is truly so immaculately preserved that it wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb trying to walk around the streets. The faces are sunken, the jaws and teeth and cheekbones too prominent, etc, etc. They’re obviously dead. I find I have more respect for them while recognising that they’re dead than trying to pretend that they look just as they did when alive. They don’t.
There’s an amazing amount to be learned from some of these bodies, and Pringle does a great job of showing some of the breadth of what’s out there and what questions we need to ask.
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
The only thing I would really criticise is the hyperbolic breathlessness about how some of these mummies “look as if they were alive” or “wouldn’t look out of place on the street”. No, the preservation is amazing, but I have yet to see a mummy that is truly so immaculately preserved that it wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb trying to walk around the streets. The faces are sunken, the jaws and teeth and cheekbones too prominent, etc, etc. They’re obviously dead. I find I have more respect for them while recognising that they’re dead than trying to pretend that they look just as they did when alive. They don’t.
There’s an amazing amount to be learned from some of these bodies, and Pringle does a great job of showing some of the breadth of what’s out there and what questions we need to ask.
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
February 26, 2019
Pringle attends a conference on mummies (The Mummy Congress) and pursues the topics presented in papers at the conference. Her research takes her to the tombs of Egypt to the bogs of the Netherlands to the peaks of the Andes. An enjoyable approachable read. I’m interested in pursuing what further research has been done since 2001 (publ date) on several of the famous mummies mentioned in the book.
November 8, 2020
I was intrigued by the thought of a Congress held every four years dedicated to mummification. It is made up of archeologists, pathologists, all the 'ists'. They each present their research and new findings from the study of mummies all over the world.
There is really only one chapter on the congress itself, the rest of the book explores some of the people who have dedicated their lives to investigating and sharing their findings with the rest of the world (or at least the science and medical communities) to help learn about the history of diseases and cultures past.
I enjoyed it, a quick and easy read.
There is really only one chapter on the congress itself, the rest of the book explores some of the people who have dedicated their lives to investigating and sharing their findings with the rest of the world (or at least the science and medical communities) to help learn about the history of diseases and cultures past.
I enjoyed it, a quick and easy read.
October 21, 2017
4.5 Stars
An enlightening read on almost anything you could want to know about mummies throughout history
An enlightening read on almost anything you could want to know about mummies throughout history
April 14, 2013
I really appreciate my colleague Tony thinking to loan me this book. I love detailed accounts of obsessive subcultures and the insular, scientific world of mummy specialists qualifies. This was a thought-provoking work. One of the controversies in the field is whether to do destructive autopsies on mummies. I had hoped for a middle ground: at most use the accurate, tiny tools of laparoscopic surgery and digital laparoscopes. However, a close look at the work of an avid dissector convinced me: tools for mushy bodies don't work in dessicated corpses hardened to resin. Not fully exploiting some corpses misses unique discoveries like the example of an entire workman's shirt hidden in the wrappings. Other myth's exploded: Twain probably made up mummies as locomotive fuel (I had thought as much) and there never was paper made from mummy linens. This despite its inclusion in multiple histories of paper making.
I never watched the TV documentary on "cocaine mummies", but the discovery of THC and cocaine traces in the hair of Peruvian and Egyptian mummies made me want to believe partying elite were sending brickes of coke and bales of marijuana to each other across the southern Atlantic. But, apparently such trips were not possible at the time and such assaying only tells us how littel we know about the chemical processes involved.
The title refers to a regular meeting of mummy experts and the author, a report for a magazine, attended and following the "threads" from one year to track down those active in the "fields" of bogs, Valley of the Kings, Incan repositories and more. A chapter near the end on the ruthless, police state tactics South American missionaires took to destroy Incan mummy culture, a culturally important form of ancestor worship, was among the most repulsive material of a work that goes for the visceral.
Finally, the chapter on Lenin's embalming and that of the other Communist world corpses it inspired it self inspired me to read more on these "Mausoleummists".
I never watched the TV documentary on "cocaine mummies", but the discovery of THC and cocaine traces in the hair of Peruvian and Egyptian mummies made me want to believe partying elite were sending brickes of coke and bales of marijuana to each other across the southern Atlantic. But, apparently such trips were not possible at the time and such assaying only tells us how littel we know about the chemical processes involved.
The title refers to a regular meeting of mummy experts and the author, a report for a magazine, attended and following the "threads" from one year to track down those active in the "fields" of bogs, Valley of the Kings, Incan repositories and more. A chapter near the end on the ruthless, police state tactics South American missionaires took to destroy Incan mummy culture, a culturally important form of ancestor worship, was among the most repulsive material of a work that goes for the visceral.
Finally, the chapter on Lenin's embalming and that of the other Communist world corpses it inspired it self inspired me to read more on these "Mausoleummists".
September 1, 2016
I expected something very different from what I ended up reading when I picked up The Mummy Congress. Most reviews led me to believe I'd be reading a mere history of mummies. While the book does give a overview of the history of mummies, it also delves into the odd world of those who study mummies. Through telling the story of these meticulous and eccentric researchers, Pringle reveals the world of mummies to the casual enthusiast.
I don't recommend this book to those who are easily grossed out as the discussion of dead flesh and parasites is not for the faint of heart. I also don't think anyone who has more than a passing knowledge of mummies will find this book very enlightening. It is informative but sort of just skims the surface and paints a picture rather than really offering a comprehensive study of mummies themselves.
All in all, I learned a lot and kept bothering my roommate with tales of mummies all weekend. I think it's a good sign when a book makes you want to share its information with others around you.
I don't recommend this book to those who are easily grossed out as the discussion of dead flesh and parasites is not for the faint of heart. I also don't think anyone who has more than a passing knowledge of mummies will find this book very enlightening. It is informative but sort of just skims the surface and paints a picture rather than really offering a comprehensive study of mummies themselves.
All in all, I learned a lot and kept bothering my roommate with tales of mummies all weekend. I think it's a good sign when a book makes you want to share its information with others around you.
February 22, 2008
After Heather Pringle attended the Mummy Congress, an academic convention for the archaeologists and others who specialize in the study of mummified humans, she was so fascinated that she sought out experts in the field to help satisfy her curiosity about mummies. Along the way, she also reflects on why we are so fascinated by mummies, and what that fascination has historically meant for the treatment of mummified humans. This is a really interesting book, since it reveals the scope of mummy research -- mummies aren't just in Egypt, they have been found all over the globe. Sometimes I was frustrated because I really wanted to spend more time on the individual cases, but since it's sort of an overview of the field it's not possible to cover everything there is to know about the various archaeological sites. I recommend this if you have an interest in archaeology and share my fascination with eerily well-preserved human remains.
October 22, 2010
This would be a very absorbing book for the uninitiated. With a lifelong interest in the subject, however, I tire of the way authors breathlessly emphasise Caucasian mummies. I think they're typically not really conscious of the difference in their responses to, for instance, the ancient Tarim Basin peoples. While in The Mummies of Urumchi, Elizabeth Wayland Barber clearly can't get over her Eurocentrism, to Heather Pringle's credit, she does acknowledge that conservatives actively want new finds and research to place white Europeans back in the center of the universe.
February 18, 2024
Between this book and Oates' *With Malice Towards None*, 2024 is turning out to be a landmark year in my reading of nonfiction. Oates' Lincoln biography convinced me that nonfiction can be written every bit as compellingly as fiction, and *The Mummy Congress* has shown that the whole "personal journey" style of science nonfiction writing can actually work. Heather Pringle takes herself and her readers on a journey stretching from the history of mummies from South America to the importance of mummification in Ancient Egypt and even the preservation of dead leaders in Russia in a way that never felt bland or even forced.
The books starts with our author attending the third instance of the World Congress of Mummy Studies, a small but passionate gathering of international experts on the subject who showed up in Arica, Chile to give each other presentations and swap historical and scientific research news. Heather Pringle was attending as a reporter, as an outsider, but that didn't stop her from getting pulled into the spirit of things by the experts' passions for the dead. This lead her to interview a host of historians and scientists from all over the globe; those are the encounters that inform most of this book. A typical section's setup is seen in the second chapter, THE DISSECTOR'S KNIFE, where Pringle is feeling mummy withdrawals after returning from the conference and seeks out one of the world's greatest authorities on mummification, Art Aufderheide, whom she meets in Egypt to get some perspective on one of the fiercest debates in modern mummy studies: is it morally okay to dissect and eternally deface a mummy? Aufderheide believes so (see the chapter title) even though his dissections, which Pringles observes, leaves our narrative guide unconvinced.
Future chapters usually have a distinct purpose which might serve as umbrella to several subject-matter experts that Pringle had the chance to meet. For example, the third chapter (HOSTS) features perspectives from several different researchers who believed that examining ancient bodies can inform us about how parasites and diseases work to this day and possibly save lives. Other chapters look at the old practice of selling mummy dust, whether or not mummies can tell us if our ancestors were on drugs, if they hold the secrets to the white man's history in entering China, the 20th-and-21st-century Russian sect of the Mausoleumists who embalmed Lenin's body and have kept it on display for decades upon decades, how mummification interacted with the Catholic class of the Incorruptibles, how a famous mummy named the Yge Girl was mummified in Netherland bogs and how exhibition and scientific rights were fought over, how American Egyptologist George Glidodn unwrapped mummies for public skeptical in Virgina and New Orleans in the mid-1800s, and so much more. Each topic's expert guide is usually painted in a colorful manner when we hear about their research credentials, and it all flows together to create a seamless reading experience that excited me about mummies for one of the first times in my life.
Honestly - if you'll allow me to get all sweeping and esoteric here - I think this book embodies everything that nonfiction is meant to do. That objective is usually simply stated as "to educate," but I believe that a more elegant way of putting it is "to give context to the world around us," and that's just what this book did. Foe example, an interview between Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin took place several days after I finished this book, and when I watched part of it, the tale of the Mausoleumists informed me about some of Putin's long speech on the ethnic and political history of Russia. And just two books after this one I read a collection of Chilean literary short fiction called *Last Evenings on Earth* by a Roberto Blanco, and having the imagery of Arica that this book painted in my head changed how I viewed geographical threads in some of those stories. And when I've thought of mummies for this reason or that reason within the last week, I no longer have this kind of garrish image of Egyptian semiology; I have a more well-rounded view of the practice as it's stood throughout time for reasons as vast and varied as worship, respect, and, in the Chileans' case, a probable refusal to let one's children go.
This glut of worldview-enhancing information is largely possible because Heather Pringle took us on a journey with her, even though the other nonfiction I've read written in this manner (which I'll admit isn't too much because 70% of what I read is science fiction) has accomplished what this book has. For example, I read *Black Hole Blues and Other Songs* by Jenna Levin a few years back, and that was about the discovery of astronomical waveforms through the people who discovered it and the journeys they went through; it's got a cool concept, but I found it dull and uninspiring. I didn't find the writing sophisticated. Here, the writing was sophisticated, and while we got an idea of Pringle's personality and philosophy (as we always should), I never felt that her persona overpowered the educational narrative I wanted.
Pringle does write more like a nonfiction writer than a fiction one (the latter of which being the ultimate hallmark of a nonfiction writer, in my slightly unmeaningful opinion), but she never came off as blocky or unliterary. The "prose" is smooth and, above all seamless, and the transitions between research figures and different subjects are clean and help make this book fun to read despite its macabre subject matter. I don't know what else I can say other than continuing to blurt out random tangents that Pringle went on here or there, so I suppose you'll have to take her literary finesse at my word until you read this yourself.
Still, it is hard for nonfiction to engage me as well as a finely written piece of fiction, so *The Mummy Congress* - which admittedly took me a little while to get into despite its smooth and structurally sound opening - only manages an 8/10. "Only" for a piece of nonfiction... what kind of snob am I becoming? Regardless of the deep and meaningful answer to that, I am becoming a solid appreciator of nonfiction works, and I hope to read more like this throughout the rest of the year, and maybe not make similar books wait over two-and-a-half years to be read after acquiring them... then again, a little bit of Purgatory (bibliographic or otherwise) never hurt anyone, even the corpses bound to become tomorrow's experiments, conversation pieces, and expressions of our collective consciousness...
The books starts with our author attending the third instance of the World Congress of Mummy Studies, a small but passionate gathering of international experts on the subject who showed up in Arica, Chile to give each other presentations and swap historical and scientific research news. Heather Pringle was attending as a reporter, as an outsider, but that didn't stop her from getting pulled into the spirit of things by the experts' passions for the dead. This lead her to interview a host of historians and scientists from all over the globe; those are the encounters that inform most of this book. A typical section's setup is seen in the second chapter, THE DISSECTOR'S KNIFE, where Pringle is feeling mummy withdrawals after returning from the conference and seeks out one of the world's greatest authorities on mummification, Art Aufderheide, whom she meets in Egypt to get some perspective on one of the fiercest debates in modern mummy studies: is it morally okay to dissect and eternally deface a mummy? Aufderheide believes so (see the chapter title) even though his dissections, which Pringles observes, leaves our narrative guide unconvinced.
Future chapters usually have a distinct purpose which might serve as umbrella to several subject-matter experts that Pringle had the chance to meet. For example, the third chapter (HOSTS) features perspectives from several different researchers who believed that examining ancient bodies can inform us about how parasites and diseases work to this day and possibly save lives. Other chapters look at the old practice of selling mummy dust, whether or not mummies can tell us if our ancestors were on drugs, if they hold the secrets to the white man's history in entering China, the 20th-and-21st-century Russian sect of the Mausoleumists who embalmed Lenin's body and have kept it on display for decades upon decades, how mummification interacted with the Catholic class of the Incorruptibles, how a famous mummy named the Yge Girl was mummified in Netherland bogs and how exhibition and scientific rights were fought over, how American Egyptologist George Glidodn unwrapped mummies for public skeptical in Virgina and New Orleans in the mid-1800s, and so much more. Each topic's expert guide is usually painted in a colorful manner when we hear about their research credentials, and it all flows together to create a seamless reading experience that excited me about mummies for one of the first times in my life.
Honestly - if you'll allow me to get all sweeping and esoteric here - I think this book embodies everything that nonfiction is meant to do. That objective is usually simply stated as "to educate," but I believe that a more elegant way of putting it is "to give context to the world around us," and that's just what this book did. Foe example, an interview between Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin took place several days after I finished this book, and when I watched part of it, the tale of the Mausoleumists informed me about some of Putin's long speech on the ethnic and political history of Russia. And just two books after this one I read a collection of Chilean literary short fiction called *Last Evenings on Earth* by a Roberto Blanco, and having the imagery of Arica that this book painted in my head changed how I viewed geographical threads in some of those stories. And when I've thought of mummies for this reason or that reason within the last week, I no longer have this kind of garrish image of Egyptian semiology; I have a more well-rounded view of the practice as it's stood throughout time for reasons as vast and varied as worship, respect, and, in the Chileans' case, a probable refusal to let one's children go.
This glut of worldview-enhancing information is largely possible because Heather Pringle took us on a journey with her, even though the other nonfiction I've read written in this manner (which I'll admit isn't too much because 70% of what I read is science fiction) has accomplished what this book has. For example, I read *Black Hole Blues and Other Songs* by Jenna Levin a few years back, and that was about the discovery of astronomical waveforms through the people who discovered it and the journeys they went through; it's got a cool concept, but I found it dull and uninspiring. I didn't find the writing sophisticated. Here, the writing was sophisticated, and while we got an idea of Pringle's personality and philosophy (as we always should), I never felt that her persona overpowered the educational narrative I wanted.
Pringle does write more like a nonfiction writer than a fiction one (the latter of which being the ultimate hallmark of a nonfiction writer, in my slightly unmeaningful opinion), but she never came off as blocky or unliterary. The "prose" is smooth and, above all seamless, and the transitions between research figures and different subjects are clean and help make this book fun to read despite its macabre subject matter. I don't know what else I can say other than continuing to blurt out random tangents that Pringle went on here or there, so I suppose you'll have to take her literary finesse at my word until you read this yourself.
Still, it is hard for nonfiction to engage me as well as a finely written piece of fiction, so *The Mummy Congress* - which admittedly took me a little while to get into despite its smooth and structurally sound opening - only manages an 8/10. "Only" for a piece of nonfiction... what kind of snob am I becoming? Regardless of the deep and meaningful answer to that, I am becoming a solid appreciator of nonfiction works, and I hope to read more like this throughout the rest of the year, and maybe not make similar books wait over two-and-a-half years to be read after acquiring them... then again, a little bit of Purgatory (bibliographic or otherwise) never hurt anyone, even the corpses bound to become tomorrow's experiments, conversation pieces, and expressions of our collective consciousness...
April 24, 2010
I should preface this by saying that I have been somewhat obsessed with mummies myself since at least the 4th grade. So to find a book that was all about mummies- but written for adults and not 4th graders was exciting. I learned so many interesting things reading this book- my favorite being that they used to make paint out of ground up mummies. But I think what I appreciated most was the look at mummies globally (not just Egyptian mummies) and what we are learning from them scientifically.
July 19, 2013
I found this book at a yard sale, the cover title caught my eye., so for 25 cents why not. I really enjoyed it. Loved that I got a glimpse into the world of mummy studies. Because it was not written by a scholar it was pleasure to read. As a child I read a piece of fiction that was written about a mummy and how the author thought she came to be in the bog. I loved that book and have read anything about mummies since.
February 10, 2012
I really enjoyed this book and learned a few things too. The text is easy to understand for someone outside the fields of study covered in this book. I like how each chapter is focused on one topic rather then trying to write a chronological piece. Being able to focus on parasites for an entire chapter made reading much easier than having to keep track of a bunch of names and dates.
January 30, 2008
Fascinating book. The pictures included are surreal. So many of the mummies pictured have been preserved so well that it is almost unnerving. Great information included and very interesting facts about mummies, archeaology and humanly preservation.
December 27, 2015
One of the most enjoyable and fascinating books I've read in years. If you've even a passing interest in mummies and the history of cool skeletal discoveries, you owe it to yourself to read this book!
October 18, 2025
Phenomenal popular science overview of the history and science on mummies, with emphasis on the science, author Heather Pringle covered every aspect one could imagine on the subject of the preserved dead or everlasting dead. It’s the latest on mummy research around the world, though sadly I must point out the book was published in 2001. Still, well worth reading.
The book covers mummies in 14 named but unnumbered chapters; “The Congress” (the author attends the Mummy Congress, a gathering of mummy researchers from all over the world to present papers and give lectures, that year in Arica, Chile; also a good general introduction to the subject); “The Dissector’s Knife” (discussion of the controversies of mummy dissection, how it is done, what is learned, and a profile of renowned mummy expert Art Aufderheide as he dissected Egyptian mummies from the ancient Egyptian town of Kellis; quite a bit on the history and science of mummification in Ancient Egypt); “Hosts” (the professional body-snatchers or Resurrection Men that found bodies for medical schools in 19th Uk, but mostly on mummies accidentally preserved in the Chihuahuan Desert of North America and the details they provide of Chagas’ disease and Egyptian mummies and what they say about schistosomiasis); “Drug Barons” (the promises and dangers of looking for drug use in mummy hair); “Crime Stories” (the bog bodies of northern Europe, particularly Denmark and the Netherlands, as well as details of famous ones such as Tollund Man and Yde Girl); “Invaders from the West” (the Caucasian mummies of Xinjiang, China and the political controversies surrounding them); “Master Race” (the use of mummies in promoting racist pseudoscience and the career of disgraced British Egyptologist George Glidden in the pre-Civil War American South; also the history of the fad of public mummy unrollings); “The Merchants of Mummy” (the long history in the trade of Egyptian mummies as medicinal products, for paint, as curios; also the origin of the word mummy, a mistranslation of mumiya, a type of asphalt from Persia that was used medicinally, a word Europeans misunderstood to mean the embalmed Egyptian dead); “Celebrities” (Tutankhamen; Juanita or the Ice Maiden, found at the world’s highest archaeological site, 22,1110 foot Mount Llullaillaco in northern Argentina); “The Incorruptibles” (the occasionally eerily preserved dead found in cemeteries and graveyards moved by the Necropolis Company in London; mainly on the accidentally or deliberately mummified bodies of European saints); “Despots” (primarily on the preservation of Lenin’s body and the story of the Mausoleumists, covers also similar efforts for Stalin and Ho Chi Minh; interesting profile of Sergei Debov, who had a hand in many preservations of dead leaders in the Communist world going back to Stalin’s mummification); “Children” (the world’s oldest mummies, the Chinchorro mummies of Chile, the oldest of which were all young children; also a lot on the reverence of mummies among the Inca and the Spanish efforts to stamp that out); “Self-preservation” (the rare number of self-mummified Shugen-do Buddhist priests from 12th-19th century Japan; also modern new age beauty products and treatments saying they are tying into mummification science as well as modern mummification including cryonics); “Coda” (final thoughts).
Every chapter profiled some past or present mummy researcher or discoverer. Mummies in popular culture, horror movies are only very briefly touched upon. Extensive bibliography. Section of color plates in the middle of the book. Well written, accessible, and interesting.
The book covers mummies in 14 named but unnumbered chapters; “The Congress” (the author attends the Mummy Congress, a gathering of mummy researchers from all over the world to present papers and give lectures, that year in Arica, Chile; also a good general introduction to the subject); “The Dissector’s Knife” (discussion of the controversies of mummy dissection, how it is done, what is learned, and a profile of renowned mummy expert Art Aufderheide as he dissected Egyptian mummies from the ancient Egyptian town of Kellis; quite a bit on the history and science of mummification in Ancient Egypt); “Hosts” (the professional body-snatchers or Resurrection Men that found bodies for medical schools in 19th Uk, but mostly on mummies accidentally preserved in the Chihuahuan Desert of North America and the details they provide of Chagas’ disease and Egyptian mummies and what they say about schistosomiasis); “Drug Barons” (the promises and dangers of looking for drug use in mummy hair); “Crime Stories” (the bog bodies of northern Europe, particularly Denmark and the Netherlands, as well as details of famous ones such as Tollund Man and Yde Girl); “Invaders from the West” (the Caucasian mummies of Xinjiang, China and the political controversies surrounding them); “Master Race” (the use of mummies in promoting racist pseudoscience and the career of disgraced British Egyptologist George Glidden in the pre-Civil War American South; also the history of the fad of public mummy unrollings); “The Merchants of Mummy” (the long history in the trade of Egyptian mummies as medicinal products, for paint, as curios; also the origin of the word mummy, a mistranslation of mumiya, a type of asphalt from Persia that was used medicinally, a word Europeans misunderstood to mean the embalmed Egyptian dead); “Celebrities” (Tutankhamen; Juanita or the Ice Maiden, found at the world’s highest archaeological site, 22,1110 foot Mount Llullaillaco in northern Argentina); “The Incorruptibles” (the occasionally eerily preserved dead found in cemeteries and graveyards moved by the Necropolis Company in London; mainly on the accidentally or deliberately mummified bodies of European saints); “Despots” (primarily on the preservation of Lenin’s body and the story of the Mausoleumists, covers also similar efforts for Stalin and Ho Chi Minh; interesting profile of Sergei Debov, who had a hand in many preservations of dead leaders in the Communist world going back to Stalin’s mummification); “Children” (the world’s oldest mummies, the Chinchorro mummies of Chile, the oldest of which were all young children; also a lot on the reverence of mummies among the Inca and the Spanish efforts to stamp that out); “Self-preservation” (the rare number of self-mummified Shugen-do Buddhist priests from 12th-19th century Japan; also modern new age beauty products and treatments saying they are tying into mummification science as well as modern mummification including cryonics); “Coda” (final thoughts).
Every chapter profiled some past or present mummy researcher or discoverer. Mummies in popular culture, horror movies are only very briefly touched upon. Extensive bibliography. Section of color plates in the middle of the book. Well written, accessible, and interesting.
September 5, 2017
è affascinante ma...
Devo ammettere di aver provato una certa ripugnanza nell'aprire questo libro (l'ho comprato nel mio solito "scouting" di letture interessante - compro e accumulo, poi leggerò). Comincia parlando di convegni sulle mummie (si potrebbe dire, ma chi se ne frega?), in realtà tra le pagine di questo libro si nasconde una serie di informazioni interessanti, sulla chimica del corpo umano dopo la morte, informazioni sulle mummie (le ricerche della Balabanova sulle mummie egizie) e una serie incredibile di informazioni sulle società antiche. In particolare il THC, la cocaina e la nicotina trovata nei capelli delle mummie egizie hanno scatenato tutti quegli scrittori come Hancock che con forza continuano con urlacci muti dai loro libri che gli Egizi hanno avuto contatti con il Nuovo mondo prima ancora di Colombo (alla fine, è molto più probabile che le tracce trovate nei capelli fossero in realtà da inquinanti atmosferici, la nicotina è presente in piccole tracce nei cibi, la cocaina un po' meno, ai tempi degli egizi, ma dopo secoli dalla mummificazione, è difficile stabilire come si sono degradate le sostanze nei capelli delle mummie). Molto interessanti le mummie delle torbiere nel nord Europa. Forse parlano di sacrifici umani, quando la società germanica fu scossa dall'arrivo dei conquistatori latini. Parecchio interessanti le mummie di razza caucasica nell'asia centrale, che parlano a distanza di secoli di una storia antichissima non riportata nei libri, di questi popoli che una volta domati i cavalli, hanno portato la tecnologia a oriente e hanno colonizzato l'Europa. Del resto, questi corpi antichissimi potrebbero essere la base da cui sorgono tutti i miti dei popoli venuti da lontano a insegnare la civiltà: la Cina possiede leggende simili, anche se si ostinano a volersi considerare una nazione isolata dall'Occidente che ha sviluppato una cultura e una tecnologia e un impero con le proprie forze soltanto. Assai più interessanti le mummie del comunismo, e le squadre dei "mausoleisti" che trasformarono Lenin e Stalin in ottime relique. Scade un po' sul finale, quando alla fine l'autrice si dilunga in una non strettamente necessaria considerazione su ciò che rappresentano le mummie per noi, nella sostanza una forma di immortalità (per chi è un po' più spirituale, la morte non sembra così spaventosa); e questo (sempre per l'autrice) è il motivo per il quale ci teniamo in forma con palestre e alimentazione (io da taoista direi che il cibo è la medicina da usare con moderazione per tenersi in salute e rallentare l'invecchiamento, e la palestra, da uomo pragmatico, è un "use it or lose it"). Nel complesso, un'ottima lettura.
Devo ammettere di aver provato una certa ripugnanza nell'aprire questo libro (l'ho comprato nel mio solito "scouting" di letture interessante - compro e accumulo, poi leggerò). Comincia parlando di convegni sulle mummie (si potrebbe dire, ma chi se ne frega?), in realtà tra le pagine di questo libro si nasconde una serie di informazioni interessanti, sulla chimica del corpo umano dopo la morte, informazioni sulle mummie (le ricerche della Balabanova sulle mummie egizie) e una serie incredibile di informazioni sulle società antiche. In particolare il THC, la cocaina e la nicotina trovata nei capelli delle mummie egizie hanno scatenato tutti quegli scrittori come Hancock che con forza continuano con urlacci muti dai loro libri che gli Egizi hanno avuto contatti con il Nuovo mondo prima ancora di Colombo (alla fine, è molto più probabile che le tracce trovate nei capelli fossero in realtà da inquinanti atmosferici, la nicotina è presente in piccole tracce nei cibi, la cocaina un po' meno, ai tempi degli egizi, ma dopo secoli dalla mummificazione, è difficile stabilire come si sono degradate le sostanze nei capelli delle mummie). Molto interessanti le mummie delle torbiere nel nord Europa. Forse parlano di sacrifici umani, quando la società germanica fu scossa dall'arrivo dei conquistatori latini. Parecchio interessanti le mummie di razza caucasica nell'asia centrale, che parlano a distanza di secoli di una storia antichissima non riportata nei libri, di questi popoli che una volta domati i cavalli, hanno portato la tecnologia a oriente e hanno colonizzato l'Europa. Del resto, questi corpi antichissimi potrebbero essere la base da cui sorgono tutti i miti dei popoli venuti da lontano a insegnare la civiltà: la Cina possiede leggende simili, anche se si ostinano a volersi considerare una nazione isolata dall'Occidente che ha sviluppato una cultura e una tecnologia e un impero con le proprie forze soltanto. Assai più interessanti le mummie del comunismo, e le squadre dei "mausoleisti" che trasformarono Lenin e Stalin in ottime relique. Scade un po' sul finale, quando alla fine l'autrice si dilunga in una non strettamente necessaria considerazione su ciò che rappresentano le mummie per noi, nella sostanza una forma di immortalità (per chi è un po' più spirituale, la morte non sembra così spaventosa); e questo (sempre per l'autrice) è il motivo per il quale ci teniamo in forma con palestre e alimentazione (io da taoista direi che il cibo è la medicina da usare con moderazione per tenersi in salute e rallentare l'invecchiamento, e la palestra, da uomo pragmatico, è un "use it or lose it"). Nel complesso, un'ottima lettura.
October 13, 2023
This book was great! It was a really masterful blend of scientific information and interesting anecdotes. I love that the author focused not only on the mummies themselves and how they came to be (and what cultures they came from), but the researchers involved with studying them and the modern cultural reception surrounding mummy discoveries. Every chapter was full of interesting information and had a great hook that kept me interested.
One of my favorite chapters was one of the last chapters on self-preservation. Pringle compares information on Buddhist monks who tried to self-mummify themselves by eating tree resin and starving themselves to the modern day fitness/beauty and cryogenics industries as examples of our desire to stay immortal and not age or die--the comparison worked really well, in my opinion. Pringle also has a lot of great moments of thought surrounding her feelings on seeing mummified corpses and the emotions that arise in her--the innate human awe at "immortality." She examines this line of thinking thoroughly, and I found it fascinating along with her.
So, overall, it was a wonderful non-fiction book. I've already recommended it to several people :)
One of my favorite chapters was one of the last chapters on self-preservation. Pringle compares information on Buddhist monks who tried to self-mummify themselves by eating tree resin and starving themselves to the modern day fitness/beauty and cryogenics industries as examples of our desire to stay immortal and not age or die--the comparison worked really well, in my opinion. Pringle also has a lot of great moments of thought surrounding her feelings on seeing mummified corpses and the emotions that arise in her--the innate human awe at "immortality." She examines this line of thinking thoroughly, and I found it fascinating along with her.
So, overall, it was a wonderful non-fiction book. I've already recommended it to several people :)
January 11, 2020
The Mummy Congress is as much a history of our obsession with mummies as a history of mummies themselves. It discusses various cultural types of mummification, as well as natural mummification, and cultural trends around mummies. It also gives brief bios on some preeminent mummy researchers.
It's really interesting, it's really well written and very readable - once I got started, I read the bulk of it over two days - and my only complaint is that there weren't pictures. When you tell me about how beautiful these mummies are, I want to see them! But I was reading on Overdrive, so it wasn't hard to have a search up.
It's very much an introductory text, and doesn't get super in depth on any particular area/culture, but I don't know a ton about mummies so as a casual, non-academic reader, it worked very well for me. I found the section on Andean mummies particularly interesting.
It's really interesting, it's really well written and very readable - once I got started, I read the bulk of it over two days - and my only complaint is that there weren't pictures. When you tell me about how beautiful these mummies are, I want to see them! But I was reading on Overdrive, so it wasn't hard to have a search up.
It's very much an introductory text, and doesn't get super in depth on any particular area/culture, but I don't know a ton about mummies so as a casual, non-academic reader, it worked very well for me. I found the section on Andean mummies particularly interesting.
September 24, 2022
This book was a wonderful and seemingly comprehensive examination of different mummy and mummification traditions around the world, both ancient and more modern.
I am not totally convinced by the organization of the book as the chapters start with fairly broad examinations and eventually seem to be covering miscellany that didn't fit into the broader topics. And there were a few pieces that I wish had been more combined. For example, there are three sections related to three different mummification traditions concerning Inca and other Chilean cultures, and I would have been interested in any information about how those might have been linked.
That being said, I am a bit of a magpie when it comes to facts and histories related to weird niche subjects and this book really scratched that itch.
I am not totally convinced by the organization of the book as the chapters start with fairly broad examinations and eventually seem to be covering miscellany that didn't fit into the broader topics. And there were a few pieces that I wish had been more combined. For example, there are three sections related to three different mummification traditions concerning Inca and other Chilean cultures, and I would have been interested in any information about how those might have been linked.
That being said, I am a bit of a magpie when it comes to facts and histories related to weird niche subjects and this book really scratched that itch.
February 17, 2022
A wonderful and fascinating book which is a pleasure to read and has given me fascinating bits of information and insights into something - the mummified dead - which I hadn't given much thought to since my days as a child watching cheesy Hammer horror flicks - not that this book has anything to do with cheesy horror films or the types of pseudo science/archeology that gets pumped out on out TVs now-a-days. The subject of the book is utterly serious - that is what makes it fascinating and it is pleasure to read of Ms. Pringle's fascinating, enthusiasm and gradual absorption into the arcane world of mummies. I loved it and I defy you not to love it too.
January 31, 2025
I really like this book - it gave a great overview of where mummy research is today. As a scientist myself I found the science/pathology portions of this book very fascinating, and just how much work it is. I mean these scientists don’t get paid much if at all to do this work, and this tends to be their side job! I’m going to have to see if I can find a more comprehensive book about mummy pathology though.
Egypt/mummies are a side interest for me, so I loved this!
Egypt/mummies are a side interest for me, so I loved this!
March 21, 2022
When you like the 1932 Mummy film with Boris Karloff, this may be something for you. How people over the ages have tried to stop the decay of the body after death, from Egyptian mummies to Japanese monks who practiced a very effective form of self-mummification, and even modern methods. Not for the faint of heart.
did-not-finish
March 19, 2024DNF at somewhere just over 100 pages. That's further than I got last time. However, given that I've tried reading this a couple of times, I think it's safe to say this time it's a permanent DNF. If you're really into mummies, you'd probably love this book. I'm not, and a lot of time was spent on the different researchers in the field, which I was even less interested in.
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