Mummies Rewrite the Story of Ancient Egypt's Roots

Pyramids and pharaohs: iconic images of ancient Egypt, but what came before the massive tombs and elaborate burials? New analysis of old evidence is shaking up conventional thinking about how early, how quickly and even why prehistoric nomadic societies coalesced into the world’s first formal state. A key to understanding the surprising new chronology of ancient Egypt’s foundation can be found in tiny, “toffee-like” shards of material, some of which are more than 6,000 years old. In 2014, researchers rewrote the timeline for mummification — moving its start back in time by millennia — when University of York archaeological chemist Stephen Buckley analyzed several fragments of funerary textiles and reed matting dating from 4500 to 3350 B.C. The fragments spanned two key periods in prehistoric Egypt: the Late Neolithic, or Badarian period, and the Predynastic, or Naqada period. The material, excavated in Egypt in the early 20th century, was residing in the Bolton Museum in northwestern England. The fragments were significant because the location, and the archaeological context in which they were found, had been accurately recorded — a rare find for material this old. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), Buckley hoped to succeed where two previous attempts by chemists had failed: to extract and identify the components of a dark golden-brown substance that had been applied to the funerary fabrics in preparation for burial.