杏吧原创

The Mummy Congress by Heather Pringle, Fourth Estate, 拢15.99, ISBN
1841151114

HUMAN mummies have a fascinating history. They have appeared all over the
world, from the politically embarrassing red-haired Caucasian mummies of China鈥檚
Taklamakhan desert, to the Inca human sacrifices of the Andes and the familiar
Egyptian kind. In The Mummy Congress, journalist Heather Pringle engages the
reader with compulsive鈥攕ometimes repulsive 鈥攊nsights into the
strange world of preserved human cadavers, terrible diseases and often obsessive
investigators who study them.

It is a paradox that the public鈥檚 appetite for mummies has rarely translated
into funding for research. Many of today鈥檚 tight-knit community of experts study
mummies almost as a sideline, funding their own research. Things are changing,
however, with new impetus coming from the establishment of a mummy tissue bank
at the University of Manchester, which aims to investigate 5000 years of
parasitic infections鈥攕chistosomiasis is the most common.

Startling details and strange insights fill the book. The Egyptians fought
鈥渢ar wars鈥� against the Syrians in 313 BC for control of the Dead Sea鈥檚 asphalt,
which replaced the conifer resins previously used to preserve the bodies. The
ancient Greeks believed that stone coffins were responsible for bodily decay;
they called them 鈥渇lesh-eaters鈥� or sarcophagi. Traces of cocaine and tobacco in
Egyptian mummy hair caused a stir in the 1990s. While Pringle rightly rubbishes
the transatlantic voyage explanation, she notes that the same forensic technique
was used to convict Washington鈥檚 Mayor Barry of cocaine possession in 1990.

Thoroughly researched and compellingly written,
The Mummy Congress opens up a
strange world indeed.