'Green Magic' Protected Egyptian Child Mummies
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Feb. 5, 2009 -- A rare mummified child from the early period of Egyptian history
was
discovered buried with a bright green amulet stone once believed to hold magical
powers,
according to a new study.

The finds help to explain why hieroglyphics and historical texts record that
Egyptian
children wore green eye makeup. It also adds to the growing body of evidence
that ancient
Egyptians thought color itself held sacred energy that could help or hurt
individuals.
Lead author Raffaella Bianucci explained that the first Egyptian colored amulets
occurred
as early as the predynastic Badarian period, from 4500 to 3800 B.C. The recently
analyzed
child mummy, containing the remains of a 15- to 18-month-old toddler, dates to
4,700
years ago.

"Even in limited forms and materials, these earliest amulets give a good
indication of the
dangerous forces that the early Egyptians felt were present in their world and
needed to
be harnessed by magical means," said Bianucci, a scientist in the Department of
Animal
and Human Biology at Via Accademia Albertina in Turin, Italy.

She and her colleagues first examined the child's remains, which were wrapped in
linen
bandages. Immunological evidence determined that the youngster died from an
acute
malarial infection.

The researchers then turned their attention to a fossilized leather bag tied
with linen
twine, which was wrapped in the bandages with the mummy. Two stones were found
within the bag. The researchers focused on a bright green one, found poking
through the
fossilized leather.

Powerful X-rays, as well as scanning electron microscope analysis, revealed that
the stone
was chrysocolla, or hydrated copper silica, according to the paper that will be
published in
the March issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. To this day,
chrysocolla is valued
as an ornamental stone that, in its bluer forms, is sometimes confused with
turquoise.
Bianucci said malachite was a more common green mineral in early Egypt, since
chrysocolla ores were limited to very few in the Sinai and the Eastern Egyptian
Desert.
Chrysocolla may have been special for children, as archaeologists previously
unearthed a
small figure of a child made of the green material in another grave.

"In ancient Egypt, color was an integral part of the substance and being of
everything in
life," she said, explaining that green -- the color of new vegetation and
growing crops,
including the treasured papyrus plant -- was linked to health and "flourishing."
Chapter
30 of the Book of the Dead, an ancient Egyptian funerary text, instructs that a
scarab
beetle amulet be made of green minerals and placed at the heart of mummies.

Bianucci continued that, based on such records, red was the color of life and
victory, white
suggested omnipotence and purity, black was a symbol of death and the night,
blue
symbolized life and rebirth and yellow was thought to be eternal and
indestructible, like
the sun and gold.

In terms of the child mummy's green amulet, she said, "We can hypothesize that
(the
parents) wished their child to be protected from unwanted influence and to be
healthy in
its afterlife."

Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo,
told Discovery
News that "the study was very well executed" and "is just what we need to shed
light on
the cultural practices and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians."

"The fact that the child was buried with a chrysocolla bead is very interesting
as it is rare
to have such an identification," Ikram added. "Clearly this was an amulet that
was interred
with the child in an effort to ensure its safety in the afterworld -- a pity it
did not protect
the infant in this one."


http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/05/child-mummy.html