Greg House: Man of Science, Son of Alchemy

[researchgrrrl]

Researchgrrrl, I hear you say warily, we cannot help but fear that in your new love of the totally hot and heart-stoppingly lickable Winchester boys that, well, you have completely lost your shit as evinced by the subject line...perhaps you sustained mild brain damage when inhaling the poison death gas yesterdayFear not, I must hastily reply, because my shit

Comments

[hecateshound]

Best mummification link EVER

[researchgrrrl]

Except... I want more. Bandaging and more recipies! Because now I'm left with a half-dismembered cadaver and a bunch of canopic jars, and that's just messy.

Hee! I'm thinking I might neep further on mortuary practices, burial rituals, and grave rites in coming days. You'll by all means have more recipes. *g* And this is my absolute favorite mummifying site, ever, because of its wonderful and scientifically thorough style. So glad you loved it, too!

I'm also glad that you dig the Alchemist metaphor given all that you know on the subject. If I can convince you, then I know I've presented a decent argument. *g*

[hecateshound]

Heh.

But hey... more mummification! Because you know, my life ambition is to make bright joy for some pathologist somewhere, someday, you know. I mean, I just know I didn't get the whole deal back in fourth grade. I mean, we got to build papier mache canopic jars out of milk cartons, and little wire brain hooks out of coat hangers, but we never got to actually mummify anybody.

Yeah, Social Studies was a weird place. It made me what I am today.

[researchgrrrl]

I'll absolutely add more mummification info -- not just Egyptian style, too. Also? I love that y'all actually got to make little wire brain hooks. That's my kind of Social Studies. Hee. I can see why you'd be traumatized not to get to use them, though. That kind of prep work should be rewarded with some sort of practicum, dammit.

[hecateshound]

You damn betcha. (*sulking*)

I was sitting around last night wondering, btw, if the bandages used for mummification were loomed especially for that, or if they were cut down from larger sheets of linen. Considering the toughness of linen, and the fact that mummification was a huge industry, I'm pretty sure they were loomed to size, but I'm not absolutely sure...

It's bothering me.

[researchgrrrl]

Hee! What a quaintly romantic notion. ;)

Dude, the linen used in wrapping mummies typically wasn't made especially for shrouds. They used old household linen saved for this purpose. In fact, a lot of the time, the linen is marked with the name of the former owner, faded from repeated washings. (Every now and then, bandages also have short religious texts written in ink, too.)

The proper wrapping of a mummy (and linen alone was used for this) required several hundred square yards of linen. The shrouds were sheets six to nine feet square; the bandages were strips torn from other sheets. The bandages were from two to eight inches wide and three to twenty feet long.

You need any other specifics, such as how the layering worked and when the resin was applied, or are you already familiar with that stuff?

[hecateshound]

Sunshine, I DEFINE 'quaint romance'....

Thanks for this. It was going to drive me crazy.

I was pretty sure I was familiar with all the bandaging details, but after this lapse, I think I need a full refresher course. Off to consult your other links.

(I may need to build a time machine and go set up shop in Ancient Egypt. I would, of course, hand-loom purpose-built mummification bandages of finest linen. All enscribed with religious texts, of course. Possibly in designer colors.)

[researchgrrrl]

Well, the Egyptians did stock up those tombs with bolts of fancy-ass linens. You weren't being agonizingly quaint or anything in trying to remember what the deal was with the wrappings. :)

[hecateshound]

Thanks. I feel better now.

But how cool would it be if, you know, there were a mummy all done up in, like, BLUE wrappings? Or red and blue and yellow and purple? I mean, white is so LAST SEASON...

[researchgrrrl]

OMG. Finding a mummy that had been wrapped in dyed linens? Oh, man. That would be too cool.

It it ever happens, I'll know definitively that you succeeded in building your time machine.

[hecateshound]

(sighs happily at the thought)There's a book on ancient textile manufacture - I think it's WOMEN'S WORK: THE FIRST TEN THOUSAND YEARS (which is a really stupid title, but there you are) - which discusess, among other things, how you can track the shift in rulership in various city states by the level of craft in weaving and dyeing patterns in the textiles. Apparently, when the women were weaving for themselves (according to the author), the fabrics were highly elaborate and richly-ornamented, but after the production centers had been conquered, the level of craft and ornamentation drops off sharply. There's also a lot of interesting stuff (in whatever book I'm thinking about) about wool-gathering. Literally, as Neolithic and post-Neolithic sheep weren't sheared, they were, essentially, plucked. Which was just as well, as both scissors and any form of metal that could hold a good sharp edge for more than twenty minutes were a long way in the future. And personally, I'm not sure I would want to try to take wool off a half-