IMBE UMR 7263, IRD237, Avignon University/CNRS/IRD/Aix-Marseille University, Restoration Engineering of Natural and Cultural Heritage, Faculty of Sciences, Campus Jean-Henri Fabre, 301 rue Baruch de Spinoza BP 21239, CEDEX 9, 84916 Avignon, France.
ASM, Archéologie des Sociétés Méditerranéennes, UMR5140, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Universités Paul Valéry, MCC (Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication), INRAP (Institut National de Recherches en Archéologie Préventive), CEDEX 5, F-34090 Montpellier, France.
Molecules. 2022 Feb 24;27(5):1532. doi: 10.3390/molecules27051532.
The study of animal mummification in ancient Egypt has recently received increasing attention from a number of modern scholars given the fact that this part of ancient Egyptian funerary and religious history is a practice yet to be fully understood. In this study, nine samples of embalming matter were extracted from six gazelle mummies from the archaeological site of Kom Mereh (modern village of Komir), dated to the Roman period of dominance in ancient Egypt. All samples were analyzed for the presence of inorganic and organic matter applying a multi-analytical approach based on Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Furthermore, in order to identify more specific compounds such as bitumen and beeswax in studied balms, each sample was subjected to a solid phase extraction (SPE) and saponification separation process, respectively. The results of this study revealed that the majority of the analyzed embalming substances sampled from six gazelle mummies from Kom Mereh were complex mixtures of plant oils, animal fats, conifer resin, and beeswax. In this regard, this study was able to report a practice until now unmentioned in the scientific literature, namely, the use of cruciferous oil, derived from seeds of Brassicaceae plants, in animal mummification.
古埃及动物木乃伊化的研究最近受到了许多现代学者的关注，因为古埃及丧葬和宗教历史的这一部分是一个尚未完全理解的实践。在这项研究中，从Kom Mereh（现代Komir 村）考古遗址的六只瞪羚木乃伊中提取了 9 种防腐物质样本，这些木乃伊的年代可追溯到罗马统治古埃及时期。所有样本均采用基于傅里叶变换红外光谱（FT-IR）和气相色谱-质谱（GC-MS）的多分析方法分析无机和有机物的存在。此外，为了鉴定研究香脂中的更具体化合物，如沥青和蜂蜡，每个样本分别进行固相萃取（SPE）和皂化分离过程。这项研究的结果表明，从 Kom Mereh 的六只瞪羚木乃伊中提取的大多数分析防腐物质是植物油脂、动物脂肪、针叶树树脂和蜂蜡的复杂混合物。在这方面，这项研究能够报告迄今为止在科学文献中未提及的做法，即在动物木乃伊化中使用十字花科植物种子衍生的芸苔油。
