Ancient Egypt

I first began my research at the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of Natural History. Ancient Egyptian history covers a period of over three thousand years. Most modern countries histories are only hundreds of years old. Only China can come anywhere near this in term of historical continuity. Egyptian culture declined and disappeared nearly two thousand years ago. The last trace of this culture ceased to exist in AD 391 when the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I closed …

…person (or an animal) that has been preserved after death. Normally when we die, bacteria and other germs eat away at the soft tissues (such as skin and muscles) leaving only the bones behind. Since bacteria need water in order to grow, mummification usually happens if the body dries out quickly after death. The body may then be so well preserved that we can even tell how the dead person may have looked in life.