Product Description

From the dusty origins of mummification in the deserts of South America and Africa to the latest technology hyped on the Internet by Utah's Summum Corporation (which promises mummification for millennia for a mere $62,000), "The Mummy Congress" investigates the allure of mummies. In 1998 Heather Pringle visited the remote Chilean port of Arica for The World Congress on Mummy Studies. This book introduces us to the eccentric world of the researchers and academics who investigate such phenomena as the child mummies of the Chinchorro, preserved over 7000 years ago, animal mummies from Ancient Eygpt, the 19th century Buddhist tradition of self-mummification to ward off decay, and the political mummification of 20th century demagogues like Lenin and Eva Peron. Pringle also looks at the uses of mummies for today's historians and scientists and how much they tell us about ancient cultures. This research is sometimes bizarre, but often reveals fundamental truths.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1132305 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
You do not have to be a necrophiliac to enjoy this book, and the congress in question is not on the wrong side of the moral track, but The Mummy Congress was inspired by a kind of academic love-in for amateurs of preserved bodies. Heather Pringle, a science writer who lives in Vancouver, Canada, was inspired to write this fascinating book by attending the Third World Congress on Mummy Studies held in the Chilean town of Arica at the edge of the Atacama desert. She returned, as she says "almost feverish with excitement over the wonderful stories I'd heard there". The Mummy Congress recounts many of these extraordinary stories of the discovery of mummified bodies and the people who have spent their professional lives trying to recover as much information as they can about them. There are some great crime stories here such as that of the 2400-year-old Tollund man of Denmark and the other bog bodies of Europe, many of whom might have been human sacrifices. Our concern for the dead and for elaborate burial ceremonies date back at least 30,000 years. Over the millennia humans around the world have discovered that burial in peatbogs, deserts and ice can preserve some soft tissue--especially the skin and hair, even muscle and brains--almost indefinitely. But since there are few places in the world where such conditions persist, peoples since the Chinchorros of Chile and the ancient Egyptians have spent a lot of effort trying to replicate such processes of mummification and invent even better artificial ones. The scientific investigation of mummified bodies might not be for the fainthearted and is today very sophisticated, but according to Heather Pringle, those that pursue the cause "are unquestionably heroic... they debate earnestly... the ethics of putting the ancient dead on display... (and) ...never talk lightly or unfeelingly about their ailments... they show us that even the greatest kings and holiest of saints... once suffered the common toll of humanity-disease, injury and pain". The Mummy Congress is a great read and I suspect lots of friends and family will be subjected to many a "listen to this" or "would you believe" quote. There are 16 pages of illustrations including some spooky colour photos along with an index and bibliography and, by the way, the next Mummy Congress is to be held in Greenland. --Douglas Palmer

Review
If your image of a mummy is the shambling predator of a hundred Hammer films, prepare for a widening of your horizons. The odd title of Pringle's book gives no hint of just what a comprehensive survey of the subject can be found within these pages. From the Ancient Egyptians, through medieval saints and even the mummified remains of Lenin, Eva Peron and Kim Il Sung, the reader is taken through every possible aspect of a macabre subject. Pringle is particularly sharp on the popular culture aspect of mummies (which is, let's face it, how most of us encounter the subject), and she skilfully packs in the hard-core scientific info alongside blackly comic titbits. The historical aspects are assiduously detailed, with the significance of mummies for ancient cultures brought vividly to life. We are also taken into the bizarre world of mummy studies (including the mummy congress of the title), with characters as eccentric and obsessed as any played by Peter Cushing. Her engrossing book even manages to address key issues about our attitudes towards death, often suggesting we are not so distant from the ancients in this area as we'd like to believe.

Daily Mail, Saturday 18th August
In candid and meticulous detail, [The Mummy Congress] records the grim process of suberting death.

Customer Reviews

The Mummy - A projection of ourselves.
Sold to the public by the sensationalist media, mummies are often the reluctant victims of voyeuristic graverobbers, stripped bare of past dignity and presented to further the interests of pseudo-science.
Not so in Heather Pringle’s excellent book, ‘The Mummy Congress.’ Her start point is sheer curiosity as to what rational beings really do at a mummy conference in the middle of nowhere. Actually, they do what the rest of us do at conferences- attend presentations, grumble about scheduling and prop up the bar -but I suspect with more enthusiasm than most, for theirs is a subject that grabs the soul, and refuses to let go.
Her desire to understand the reasons why people mummified their dead develops into an elegantly argued insight to the human condition and our continuing need to establish a continuation of existence.
This beautifully written narrative deals with both archaeological fact and carefully reasoned spiritual insight, exploring the reasons why humans feel compelled to preserve and project themselves into the future.
Conspiracy theorists and the ‘aliens showed the Egyptians what to do’ lobby will be disappointed with this book- the rest of us will applaud an insight as to why we are still fascinated with mummies.

Good introduction to the topic
The writer brings a journalistic approach to the topic of mummies and the sub-title of the book clearly defines the multiple angles she chose to follow. She covers a great deal of territory, both geographically (all the continents except Antarctica) historically, psychologically and morally.

In a sense this is almost an "Encyclopedia of the Mummy" because it covers so many aspects of mummy hunting, dissecting and preserving. Most mummy hunters seem obsessed by their quest. They may be after mummies for scientific, historic, theatric or religious reasons, but hunt them they must. This raises moral issues; after all these were once human beings that we are putting on display, slicing for DNA or just carting off to some museums storage room. Can we justify it if we, say, understand some disease better after the research? Or is it just voyeurism for us all to know what the Iceman ate for his last meal?

The writer introduces us to individual mummy hunters, strong characters all, and the unusual places they work. Her writing is clear and vivid, if a trifle long. She is at her best describing the moral and psychological issues surrounding our fascination with mummies and the way they relate to our own mortality anf hopes for immmortality.

Fascinating exploration of the world of the seriously dead
The eponymous "Mummy Congress" is a gathering of mummy experts which took place, to the bemusement of locals, in a small town on the edge of the Atacama Desert (home of the earliest known mummies).

This is the starting point for a fascinating journey through the curious and occasionally eccentric world of mummies and mummy enthusiasts.

Mummies are found throughout the world and throughout human history. They include the intentionally mummified (Egyptian pharaohs, medieval saints, Communist leaders) and the unintentionally preserved (bog bodies, ice-men, Andean children). They have been the subject of scientific investigations, pseudo-scientific claims, religious devotion and the politics of nationality and race.

A riveting read, with excellent colour photographs, this a book to be savoured by anyone who is caught up in the widespread fascination with the remains of the long dead and what they can teach us, not simply about the past, but about the nature of our humanity.