The Purpose of Mummification

parashat Vaychi

In Vaychi, Yaakov is mummified. Bereshit 50:2:

וַיְצַ֨ו יוֹסֵ֤ף אֶת־עֲבָדָיו֙ אֶת־הָרֹ֣פְאִ֔ים לַחֲנֹ֖ט אֶת־אָבִ֑יו וַיַּחַנְט֥וּ הָרֹפְאִ֖ים אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

Then Joseph ordered the physicians in his service to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed Israel.

וַיִּמְלְאוּ־לוֹ֙ אַרְבָּעִ֣ים י֔וֹם כִּ֛י כֵּ֥ן יִמְלְא֖וּ יְמֵ֣י הַחֲנֻטִ֑ים וַיִּבְכּ֥וּ אֹת֛וֹ מִצְרַ֖יִם שִׁבְעִ֥ים יֽוֹם׃

It required forty days, for such is the full period of embalming. The Egyptians bewailed him seventy days;

As I’ve noted in the past, if we follow those who take as literal and historical the midrash that Yaakov Avinu didn’t die, then this was an incredibly mean thing for Yosef to order. After all, ancient Egyptian mummification involved removing the brain through the nostrils and placing it in a jar, certainly not a pleasant experience.

So too in pasuk 26, the last pasuk of Bereishit:

וַיָּ֣מׇת יוֹסֵ֔ף בֶּן־מֵאָ֥ה וָעֶ֖שֶׂר שָׁנִ֑ים וַיַּחַנְט֣וּ אֹת֔וֹ וַיִּ֥ישֶׂם בָּאָר֖וֹן בְּמִצְרָֽיִם׃

Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

What was the purpose of such embalming? Why did Yosef order it? Perhaps since this was what was done for Pharaohs and other elites, this was a way to accord high honor to Yaakov.

Depending on its significance in Egyptian culture, it might be yet another clue about belief in an afterlife in the Torah. (This alongside וְהוֹרַדְתֶּם אֶת שֵׂיבָתִי בְּיָגוֹן שְׁאוֹלָה.)

A recent article describes a disagreement among Egyptologists.

An increasing number of archaeologists say that the preservative effects of mummification were likely accidental and blame early modern Egyptologists for propagating a misunderstanding based on little evidence.

Instead, the theory goes, mummification was meant to alter the bodies in a way that didn't rely on the popular theory that the bodies would become reanimated in an afterlife.

Instead, the experts say, Egyptians intended to turn their pharaohs into statues, works of art with religious significance.

Now, popular science reporting notoriously takes “these few guys think that this alternate explanation is plausible” and turn it into upheaval in the scientific world. But let’s run with it.

It might work with a midrashic explanation of why Yaakov didn’t want Yosef to bury him in Egypt. In Bereshit 47:29 when Yaakov adjures Yosef about this, Rashi writes:

אל נא תקברני במצרים

BURY ME NOT, I PRAY THEE, IN EGYPT — Because its soil will ultimately become lice which would swarm beneath my body. Further, those who die outside the Land of Israel will not live again at the Resurrection except after the pain caused by the body rolling through underground-passages until it reaches the Holy Land) And another reason is that the Egyptians should not make me (my corpse or my tomb) the object of idolatrous worship (Genesis Rabbah 76:3).

There’s also an interesting Shadal about the time mummification takes. Recall that the verse above mentioned 40 days for mummification, and mourning for 70 days. Shadal writes that the 70 were the 40 for mummification followed by 30 days of mourning. He also writes:

לחנוט את אביו: היו מוציאים מגופו של מת המוח והמעים, והיו מלאים את הבטן מר וקציעה, ואח"כ היו מולחים כל הגוף בנתר (nitrum) משך ארבעים יום, והירודוט אומר שבעים יום, ודיאודורוס אומר יותר משלשים יום, ואין ספק שהיה הדבר הזה ידוע לישראל ולמשה יותר ממה שהיה ידוע ליונים, והנה יעקב ויוסף נחנטו מפני שהוצרכו להוליכם לארץ אחרת לקברם.

He notes that Herodotus (5th century BCE) says 70 days for mummification.

They take first a crooked piece of iron, and with it draw out the brain through the nostrils, thus getting rid of a portion, while the skull is cleared of the rest by rinsing with drugs; next they make a cut along the flank with a sharp Nubian stone, and take out the whole contents of the abdomen, which they then cleanse, washing it thoroughly with palm wine, and again frequently with an infusion of pounded aromatics. After this they fill the cavity with the purest bruised myrrh, with cassia, and every other sort of spicery except frankincense, and sew up the opening. Then the body is placed in natrum for seventy days, and covered entirely over. After the expiration of that space of time, which must not be exceeded, the body is washed, and wrapped round, from head to foot, with bandages of fine linen cloth, smeared over with gum, which is used generally by the Egyptians in the place of glue, and in this state it is given back to the relations, who enclose it in a wooden case which they have had made for the purpose, shaped into the figure of a man. Then fastening the case, they place it in a sepulchral chamber, upright against the wall. Such is the most costly way of embalming the dead.

Diodorus has about 30 days:

5 The men called embalmers, however, are considered worthy of every honour and consideration, associating with the priests and even coming and going in the temples without hindrance, as being undefiled. When they have gathered to treat the body after it has been slit open, one of them thrusts his hand through the opening in the corpse into the trunk and extracts everything but the kidneys and heart, and another one cleanses each of the viscera, washing them in palm wine and spices. 6 And in general, they carefully dress the whole body for over thirty days, first with cedar oil and certain other preparations, and then with myrrh, cinnamon, and such spices as have the faculty not only of preserving it for a long time but also of giving it a fragrant odour. And after treating the body they return it to the relatives of the deceased, every member of it having been so preserved intact that even the hair on the eyelids and brows remains, the entire appearance of the body is unchanged, and the cast of its shape is recognizable. 7 This explains why many Egyptians keep the bodies of their ancestors in costly chambers and gaze face to face upon those who died many generations before their own birth, so that, as they look upon the stature and proportions and the features of the countenance of each, they experience a strange enjoyment, as though they had lived with those on whom they gaze.

Faced with the Torah being contradicted by historians, Shadal said ואין ספק שהיה הדבר הזה ידוע לישראל ולמשה יותר ממה שהיה ידוע ליונים, “there is no doubt that this matter was better known to the Israelites and Moshe more than to the Greeks”. He also explains the mummification as מפני שהוצרכו להוליכם לארץ אחרת לקברם, to preserve them due to the need to bring them to another land to bury them.