Dimensions
129 x 197 x 19mm
Discovering the World's Mummy Cultures
Everyone knows that the ancient Egyptians were great mummifiers and their bandage-wrapped, preserved bodies are extremely familiar to us all. Yet across the vast sweep of history we find many other cultures in which the bodies of the dead were routinely preserved. Earliest of all were the Chinchorros in Peru, but mummies have also been found in China, the central Asian steppes, most of South America and in the peat bogs of northern Europe.
Taking Howard Reid's extraordinary first-hand experiences as an anthropologist and film-maker as a starting point, 'In Search of the Immortals' looks at why these cultures mummified their dead. In so doing it comes up against that most timeless human conundrum: the meaning of death.
