The Problem of Brain Removal during Embalming by the Ancient Egyptians

Abstract

UNTIL the appearance in I911 of Karl Sudhoff's essay 'Agyptische MumienmacherInstrumente',' medical historians had formulated no views on the removal of the brain during the embalming process other than that expressed by Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. He wrote: 'First they (the embalmers) drew out the brain through the nostrils with an iron hook, taking part of it out this way, and the rest by pouring in drugs.'2 In an attempt to gain further knowledge of this subject the author examined skulls of ancient Egyptians in the Macalister Collection at Cambridge3 made by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge whilst he was in Egypt, and believed by him to consist of skulls of priests of the third and fourth degrees who served in the temples at Aswan.4 Investigation of the late Professor Alexander Macalister's papers revealed that originally there were some 500 skulls in the collection.5 Of these, 56 per cent showed a hole, made post mortem, in the base of the skull through the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone. In 5 per cent it had been made through the left nostril, and in 3 per cent through the right one. In others the nasal septum had been wholly or partially removed, so that a much larger perforation into the base of the skull had resulted. Mainly owing to damage suffered in the Second World War the number of skulls has unfortunately been reduced to 327; of these, 22 were not in a condition to permit assessment. It was established that in 11 per cent the extracting instrument had been introduced through the left nostril to make an entrance into the base of the skull, and in 5 per cent its course had been through the right nostril. In 62 cases appearances suggested that less careful operative procedures had resulted in partial or total destruction of the nasal septum, and in the making of a larger hole through the ethmoid bone into the base of the cranium.