Mummy Congress - Hardcover

Pringle, Heather; Rowland, Wade

4.1

838 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670888028 ISBN 13: 9780670888023

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2001

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Now available in paperback -- The Mummy Congress is "clear, direct and intense . . . all the stories sparkle. Pringle is a crack-shot storyteller." --New York Times Book Review

Perhaps the most eccentric of all scientific meetings, the World Congress on Mummy Studies brings together mummy experts from all over the globe and airs their latest findings. Who are these scientists, and what draws them to this morbid yet captivating field? The Mummy Congress, written by acclaimed science journalist Heather Pringle, examines not just the world of mummies, but also the people obsessed with them.

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Review:

Mummies fascinate us. As we peer at their withered flesh, we are glimpsing a type of immortality. Heather Pringle tells the stories of some of these "frail elders"--and the scientists who study them--in The Mummy Congress.

Pringle details the tension between the preservationists, who want to protect the ancient dead and refuse to unwrap them, and the dissectionists, who see mummies as a repository of scientific data waiting to be studied. She also introduces the reader to the preserved dead from around the world--from the bog bodies of northern Europe to the mysterious Caucasian-looking mummies from China's Tarim Basin, from Egyptians in linen shrouds to incorruptible Christian saints, and from Lenin in his Moscow mausoleum to Incan children found on Andean mountaintops.

Peppered with fascinating snippets of information--for example, for centuries artists were sold on a pigment called "mummy," a transparent brown made from ground-up mummies--The Mummy Congress makes for lively, if somewhat ghoulish reading. Highly recommended. --Sunny Delaney

About the Author:

Heather Pringle, a frequent contributor to Discover magazine, has also published dozens of articles in Science, Stern, Geo, New Scientist, National Geographic Traveler, Islands, and Texas Monthly. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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