How were mummies made? . . . Mummifying the body required many steps and took about 70 days to complete. This process evolved over hundreds of years. The photo below right, is the mummy of a falcon.

First, the embalmers removed some of the internal organs. The next step was drying out the body itself. This took about 35-40 days. The body was covered with a salt called natron . Once the body was dried, it was wrapped with linen bandages. The wrappings were applied in many layers; the layers covering a king might number 20-80! This process probably took 15 days or more. The wrappings covered the jewelry buried on the dead person, and tucked among the linen wrappings were amulets to protect him. Now the body was protected from decay and evil spirits! The mummy was then placed in a coffin or nest of coffins to protect it even further!