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Manners and Customs of the Egyptians: Appendix

APPENDIX. proceed in the following manner; by means of syringes they inject cedar oil into the abdomen of the dead without opening it or removing the entrails, and they take care to retain the liquid in such manner that none of it may escape. They next plunge the body into carbonate of soda and leave it there for the time specified, and then cause the cedar oil which they first introduced, to issue from its cavities. The latter has strength enough to carry with it the intestines and the viscera, for it liquefies them all. Externally, the soda has dried up the flesh, and nothing remains of the dead man but his skin and his bones: these operations concluded, they deliver the body and their task is over.