Mummifying Alan: Egypt’s Last Secret

Tuesday saw Channel 4 screen their much publicised documentary Mummifying Alan: Egypt's last secret. Alan had been diagnosed with a terminal illness when he’d answer a newspaper advertisement. The advert had requested a volunteer to donate their body to be mummified. Apparently no one had been mummified in the way of the ancient Egyptian kings for thousands of years and so it was seen as being one of Egypt's last secrets. The fact that the ancient Egyptians hadn’t actually recorded how to mummify someone made this whole process all the more intriguing. Apparently they’d perfected the art by word of mouth over thousands of years.

     The main man responsible for the mummification of Alan was a man called Stephen Buckley. He’d figured out the mummification process through the careful study of existing Egyptian mummy's and by many experiments in mummifying pigs trotters. Alan himself was at ease with the whole thing. He was very philosophical about what was going to happen to him and that made the parts of the show quite uneasy viewing. He was very easy to like as a man and so seeing his dead body was very unsettling. The fact that seconds before he’d been speaking to the camera and now he was a corpse was the most upsetting thing about it all.

     The actual process seemed to be carried out with a lot of respect and care. The team involved in the mummification process seemed to care about Alan. After disembowelling him through a small incision on his side he was painted in a concoction of bees wax and sesame sees oil before being ‘dried out’ in a salt water bath. He was kept in this bath for around 35 days before being dried out.

     The true hero of this whole thing though had to be Alan's wife. Despite not actually getting to bury her husband she seemed fine about the whole thing, even going to visit him in his bandaged state. She wasn’t around on his final unwrapping though which may have been a blessing. The mummification of Alan was complete and a resounding success. You could still tell that it was Alan and he looked like the ancient mummy's.

     As a whole, the show was very interesting and thought provoking. Alan's body is currently kept in Sheffield (only a short journey from my hometown of Chesterfield) and I found myself thinking about it for a few hours afterwards. The big question is did it need to be done? I have no doubt that Alan himself wanted to do it and that it has helped with our understanding of the ancient Egyptians. It has also helped in the understanding of what happens to be body after death. It also made a very good documentary.