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Did you ever see any of those horror movies that show people being brought back from the dead? It usually ends up with some sort of flesh or brain eating zombie. There was a cult of the dead in the middle ages in Naples and it was revived in World War II. The church had rebelled against it and forbid the practice. It was unusual, but not as weird as it sounds. People in the middle ages, would take charge of human bones and skulls and pray for those unknown people hoping that they, in turn, would help their dead family members. In World War II, Naples was heavily bombed and many underground buildings and streets were rediscovered, including the cult of the dead, which was located under a large church. People again took charge of bones and skulls of those killed, in the hope that the dead would look out for their relatives who were in the war. Yes it was unusual, I admit that.

So what is this fascination that some people have with the dead? Throughout history, there have been those cultures that seemed to think more about death than life. Sometimes they would spend their entire life getting ready for their death. One just has to look at the lengths that the ancient Egyptians went to, to assure their place in the afterlife. We all know that they developed complex and often expensive ways of preserving bodies. These bodies were sometimes put into extravagant tombs. The actions to assure the afterlife of the pharos actually advanced technology, after all what is the great pyramid? It is nothing more than a tomb. Because of their concern about dying, they built huge temples, temples that were built on a scale that dwarfed anything that came before them. They learned much about building from these huge construction projects and this did not go unnoticed by other cultures. I am sure that this had some effect on the construction methods of the ancient Greeks and Roman builders. One of the greatest books in Ancient Egypt was the Book Of The Dead. The book is a collection of spells for the deceased. It worked this way, the spells were written on sheets of papyrus and accompanied by illustrations. You would place this papyrus on the deceased to help him or her on their journey. The ancient Egyptians had all the bases covered when it came to assuring a happy afterlife. The ancient Egyptians didn't look at death as the end of things, but as a continuation of their life on Earth.

In a way, the dead have been brought back at times. There are cases on record where people were submerged in freezing water for over an hour and yet, they were able to be revived without any ill effects. These people were dead and now they are alive. What have we learned from this? It seems to me that one of the biggest lessons is that if a person's body is in good shape and he drowns in very cold water, the water delays disintegration of organs and the brain. Just how long this state can be maintained is questionable, but it seems that a couple of hours is possible. Here is the thing, it just might turn out that the person we think is dead, might be alive but operating on such a low level that our instruments can not detect this fact. This last statement is surely going to be disputed by medical personnel, but I feel that it is a possibility. There are so many things that were thought to be absurd in the past that have turned out to be true that you really can't discount anything.

Many people believe that the ancient Egyptians were the first to practice mummification, but this may not be true. In Chile and parts of Peru there were mummies made that date back to at least 5,000 B.C. This may have been before the Egyptians ever started this practice. The name of this ancient people were the Chinchorros. Many archaeologists believe that they began mummification about 2,000 years before the Egyptians. Could the ancient Egyptians have somehow found out about this practice and adopted it from the Chinchorros? The Egyptians did not use the same method for mummification, however. Different types of mummification were used by the Chinchorros. The first type that they tried involved disassembly of a body, including the skin and the body was dried. The skin and body were reassembled and a special paste was put over it to hide the seams. These mummies were called Black mummies. After about 2,500 years this procedure changed. The bodies were cut and the the internal organs were removed and the internal cavity dried. The head was removed so that the brain could be extracted. The body was packed with material and sticks used to straighten it out. A wig was used and a hat of clay. Every thing was painted red and these mummies were called red mummies. During these two periods everyone that died was mummified, not just the rich and powerful. Mummies were also found that had dried naturally from the hot climate and sand. I bet you didn't know that sometimes the ancient Egyptians would preserve a body in honey. For example, a small child or a favorite animal might be occasionally preserved this way, using this method.

What is really strange, is that a country like Egypt that had great reverence for its dead for thousands and thousands of years, actually desecrated the dead in the 19th century. They used mummies as fuel for their steam engines, when the railroad was being built to span the country. The next thing that they did was sell the mummy wrappings to an American paper maker. Some mummies were ground up into powder and it was thought that taking a spoonful of this powder was good for you. Ugh! The reason that we know of the mummies being used as fuel was that Mark Twain related the story about his trip to Egypt and how he saw this.

Even today, some people are fascinated by the dead. Many museums have the bodies of mummified people on display. These people were sometime just victims of accidents that preserved them. Is it the fact that we are looking at ancient people that once roamed the planet or the fact that we are looking at the dead that drives us to view them? I would like to think that we are interested in these things for their historical value, but you can never be sure. One person may view them with the idea that he is viewing the past, but another might just have morbid curiosity. It is true that sometimes these finds advance out knowledge tremendously. For example, the find of the Iceman gave us much knowledge that we lacked before he was found. We now know what the people of his time ate, the tools they carried and their weapons, along with how they dressed. In case you don't remember, Otzi the iceman was found in the Otzi Alps in 1991. The iceman turned out to be from 3,000 B.C., but was so well preserved that the people that found him thought that he was a climber that had been killed in an accident.

Well I guess I have rambled on enough on this subject, but in a way, it is an important subject to all of us. Since the beginning of time man seems to have believed in the afterlife and has done everything possible to reach it. Most of the world today still believes in it. Could so many people be wrong?