The process of mummifying bodies for the afterlife started long before the Pharaohs, according to research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Thursday.
The discovery was made after a research team conducted an analysis of a 3,600-year-old mummy called Fred, which lies at Italy's Turin Museum, Deutsche Welle reported.
Up until this point, researchers have thought that prehistoric mummies of Egypt such as Fred were created by accident, but now evidence suggests that people may have intentionally been preserving their ancient dead 2,500 years earlier than originally projected.
It has been a lengthy process to arrive at these conclusions.
Around two decades ago, study coauthor Jana Jones, an Egyptologist at Macquarie University, first suspected that the embalming process could predate the peak of the mummification in Egypt when she started studying ancient mummy wrappings, National Geographic reported.
It would take 10 years before Jones and her team could complete an analysis though, which was published in 2014 in PLOS ONE.
However, Jones' research was based solely on textiles separated from preserved owners and not on an actual mummy, and experts remained skeptical, National Geographic said.
So, she and her team turned to Fred, the Turin Mummy, which was the ideal candidate for study as he had not been touched by modern preservatives or studied by scientists.
By taking a closer look at samples under the microscope, the researchers were able to compile a detailed recipe for the mummy's embalmment, proving that the mummy had been embalmed.
"The examination of the Turin body makes a momentous contribution to our limited knowledge of the prehistoric period and the expansion of early mummification practices, as well as providing vital, new information on this particular mummy," Jones said, according to Deutsche Welle.
"It's confirming our previous research, undoubtedly," she added, according to National Geographic.
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