Bringing Back the Past

The timeline Bringing Back the Past examines the different technologies and purposes of mummification in the course of time. The first mummification is believed to have started out of religious and spiritual reasons by the Chinchorro Tribe. Moving forward from spiritual reasons to reasons such as memory and medical technology was allowed by modern public knowledge and less religious beliefs. Recent technology has leaned towards the way of catering to the more emotional and materialistic consumers. It has also leaned towards to cater to the curiosity of the future; Cryonics. From contending the spirits to reviving the dead loved ones, the technology of preserving the dead keeps running on the demand for such services by the living.

Chinchorro Mummies

Contrary to popular belief, the first mummies were not mummified by the Egyptians. In fact the oldest and intentionally preserved body dates back to 5050 BC by the Chinchorro tribe. The tribe inhabited the northern coast, now known as Chile, mainly dieting on seafood. The ‘Black Mummies’ were one of the types of mummies created by this tribe, in which the mummification process involved disassembling the body and removing the skin, the head, and the limbs. The corpse then was fleshed, and the internal organs were removed in order to prevent the corpse from decaying. Then, the body was reconstructed with vegetable fibres or animal hair, twigs or branches as the spine and the limbs. The skin was replaced with that of a sea lion’s or a pelican’s. Finally, the body was covered with ash paste and clay, which then was painted with black manganese.


Buddhist Mummies of Japan

First done by a Japanese Buddhist priest named Kuukai, self mummification became almost religious among the Japanese monks dating back to over a thousand years ago. Kukkai, the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, went through three steps in order to achieve this self-mummification process. The first step of the process was to remove most of the body fat, which decomposes fast after death. In order to do so, the priest ate nothing but nuts and seeds, and subjected himself in enduring physical hardships. After a thousand days of such diet, the priest then restricted his diet to small portions of barks and roots of pine trees. This process, again endured for another thousand days, was performed as a means to eliminate bodily fluids to minimize the changes of decaying after death. Towards the end of the latter thousand days, the priest also started drinking tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree. Drinking this tea, which was poisonous, resulted in frequent vomiting, urination, and sweating, which further eliminated bodily fluids. Also, this process would later kill any maggots or insects that tried to eat the corpse of the priest. In the final step, the priest went into a glass tube, where he sat until his death.

Plastination

Plastination involves replacing water and lipid tissues with curable polymers. Plastination uses polyester-copolymer, silicone ...etc, as curable polymers. In the first step, the body is embalmed. First, the body is embalmed in formaldehyde solution. Then, the body is bathed in acetone which replaces the water of the cells. Then, the body is moved and put into a bath of liquid polymer. In this process, the acetone is boiled. As acetone boils it leaves the cell as it draws the liquid polymer to replace itself in the cell. The liquid polymer is then cured with gas, heat, or ultraviolet light which hardens the plastic. Then, plastinated, the bodies can be posed in different poses. Such technology dates back to November 1978, when Dr. Funther von Hagens proposed such idea and applied for a patent for this technology.

Cloning

Bernann Mckinney spent $50,000 for clones of Booger – her pet dog. Scientists at Seoul National University made this possible. Scientists at the university took skin cells from Booger’s ear tissue before the dog died, and used the skin cells to create embryos. The embryos were then implanted into female dogs, which then after three months, five clones of Booger were born. Professor Lee Byeong-chun took part in this project. He had prior experience in cloning a dog, his first experience being the cloning of Snuppy- the first dog to be cloned - in 2005.

Cryonics

Cryonics is a way of preserving humans and/or animals for the future technology. When either humans or animals cannot live on the limitations on modern medical technology, the legally deceased body is kept in a tube at a temperature of -321 °F. With hopes that the future medical technology advancement will allow life back into the currently frozen bodies.