( 5 reviews )
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Posted: Jan 7 2008
This is an absolutely enchanting book. The author has superbly combined an engaging writing style with a traditionally scientific and difficult-to-approach topic. Ranging from 'standard' Egyptian mummies, to the preserved body of Lenin, to the mysterious Scotland bog girl, to self-mummified Buddhist monks, The Mummy Congress walks the length and breadth of the earth, neglecting none in its search for fascinating mummies and diverse mummification processes. Incredibly educational, the book reads like a fascinating journey through time - a guilty pleasure that is impossible to resist. Facts are presented, myths are debunked, and what the author (and her scientist friends) are unsure about, she TELLS us they are unsure about. This is a welcome contrast to other such books which carefully hide ongoing ignorance - this one points it out openly, and vows to continue this search for the past.
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Posted: Sep 17 2007
I kept spotting this book as I browsed the bargain books at the local mega-bookseller. I'm normally leery of books with mummies and Egyptian stuff on the cover as most of them seem to be pretty thin on content and real heavy on the same old sensationalist or quasi-New Age stuff with a handful of glossy and colourful images intended to get the rubes to buy in. The price seemed right (under $5.00) so I decided to see what the back cover had to say about the content. The back of the Fourth Estate paperback didn't tell me much, but on the other hand it didn't discourage me from looking inside the book either. From the first page: Heather Pringle is a journalist and writer who has written on archeology and ancient cultures in numerous magazines including Discover, National Geographic Traveller, New Scientist, Science and Geo. She is also the author of two books, including In Search of Ancient North America. She lives in Vancouver, Canada. That pretty much sold me - a solid non-fiction science writer. The Mummy Congress starts with the convening of Third World Congress on Mummy Studies in Arica, Chile and gives us a good sense that this small field of study is made up of very dedicated people that share the same (almost maniacal) interest in mummies. Absent seem to be the snake oil salesmen, taking the liberty of calling themselves Egyptologists, we are more familiar with. Pringle uses the characters at the congress as her jumping off point for her narrative about the various kinds of mummies that exist, the way they are discovered, preserved, studied and at times desecrated for profit. Some of the things you will learn about while reading: * The dissection of mummies in Egypt where they are more plentiful than anywhere else and where the bits and pieces of those not fortunate enough to have celebrity mummy status end up. * Studies of mummies for ancient drug use and parasites that inhabited them while alive. * Origins of the "Bog People" and their ritual killing before being tossed into bogs. * Controversies over Caucasian looking mummies discovered in Northern China dating from before Europeans officially made any trips that far east. * The origin of the word "mummy" and it's roots in the for profit capitalization of ground up mummy bits packaged as medicines, elixirs and artists paint. * Famous sideshow proprietors of mummified remains and their exhibitions. * The Vatican's interest in the study of mummified remains. * The mummification of Communist leaders. An overall well written book that manages to convey lots of factual information (with a meaty bibliography and a good index) while keeping the reader entertained with colourful characters and vivid descriptions of this fascinating field of study that spans the entire globe. If you like non-fiction and/or mummies this is a great read. I didn't find any pitfalls in this book, except for the chapter on parasites which gave me the creeps while reading it in the middle of the night.
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( 0 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Sep 24 2005
"The Mummy Congress" narrates the study of mummies around the world, with its takeoff point being a meeting of mummy experts at the edge of Chile's Atacama desert. Pringle travels, interviews, observes, researches and reports. There are far more mummies around, including some being created even today, than you would have dreamed of. In addition to the Egyptian mummies --so plentiful they are almost without value -- there are "incorruptible" saints, bodies occasionally preserved in clayey English graves, dried natives of the Atacama desert, and Caucasian-seeming mummies that the Chinese government has placed off limits to investigators. The book will interest history buffs, chemists (because the preservation methods vary) and trivia fans. Much of what she learns and tells us is indeed interesting, but not riveting. There is no central person whose story is compelling; it is not like Dava Sobel's "Longitude", which followed the lifetime quest of John Harrison to create the world's first chronometer. The book is handsomely produced, with excellent photographs. It's the sort of thing you will like if you like this sort of thing. (Abraham Lincoln joke.)
