New evidence suggests that the ancient Egyptians may have understood the science of mummification much earlier than researchers previously believed.

A small team of scientists have discovered that prehistoric Egyptian civilizations developed complex recipes to preserve dead bodies as far back as 4300 B.C.

Consider that this was almost 2,000 years before prehistoric Europeans started work on Stonehenge in England. It was also about 1,500 years earlier than the art of mummification in Egypt was believed to have begun.

"The science is very powerful and straightforward," said Stephen Buckley, a chemical archaeologist at the University of York in England. "It shows clearly that Egyptians in prehistoric times were playing around quite sophisticatedly with embalming agents."

Earliest Egyptian Cemeteries

Buckley led a team of researchers in discovering that the early Egyptians purposely mixed together chemicals and then applied that recipe onto bodies before burials. This process was part of the mummification ceremony. The chemicals acted as embalming agents, helping to preserve the body for the afterlife.

Previously, scientists believed that embalming agents were not common in burials until much later, around the Middle Kingdom (2000-1600 B.C.).

While archaeologists have indeed found remains of people who lived earlier than this, there was not enough evidence to suggest the presence of embalming agents. Bodies that were found in the hot and dry desert were thought to have been preserved naturally.

The new evidence comes from old scraps of burial cloth collected from two of the earliest known Egyptian cemeteries that date to 4500 B.C.

The remnants of cloth have been part of the collection of the Bolton Museum in northern England since the 1930s. Some have ancient bits of bone and skin still attached to them.

Under A Microscope

Working alongside Buckley was Jana Jones, a scientist and textile expert at Macquarie University in Australia. Jones is the author of the research paper describing these findings. Her research was recently published in the journal PLOS One.

Jones decided to investigate the Bolton collection after learning about the methods of early Egyptian burials.

First, she scrutinized the cloth under a microscope. She was looking for chemicals that might have been preserved in the funeral linens. It appeared to her that the cloth was coated in resin. To confirm her hypothesis, she called in Buckley.

With Buckley's background in organic chemistry and his interest in ancient Egyptian history, he was able to provide important support in the investigation of the cloths. Buckley is also an expert in identifying ingredients used during mummification during the classical Egyptian period.

Buckley took the linens that Jones had collected. He then used advanced scientific techniques, including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, to test the different chemical components in each piece. He was able to determine that the linens were covered in a mixture of chemicals. Among the ingredients were pine resin, animal fat, plant extracts and natural petroleum.

These chemicals, when mixed together, act as an embalming agent that can preserve a body.

Important Early Recipe

Their findings suggest that the ancient Egyptians understood the importance of applying certain chemicals onto bodies. The body would be wrapped in linens and coated in this mixture before burial.

This early recipe was an important milestone in the development of mummification techniques.

Indeed, the combination of chemicals that Buckley detected on the test samples was essentially the same as that used by Egyptians almost 3,000 years later.

The testing also revealed other interesting facts about the funeral traditions of early Egyptians.

Some of the ingredients in the embalming mixture came from as far away as modern-day Turkey. This finding suggests that the ancient Egyptians were more mobile than previously believed.

Much More Sophisticated

The earliest cloth samples also had traces of a chemical that comes from sea sponges.

Buckley suspects that the ancient Egyptians probably noticed the sponge's ability to regrow itself. However, the later cloth samples do not have proof of the sea sponge chemical. Buckley explained that the Egyptians began to focus their energies toward land resources, instead of those found in marine wildlife.

The findings of Buckley and Jones sparked further questions about early civilizations.

The early cloth samples Buckley studied were of heads and hands wrapped in linen. Samples found in much more recent burials suggest that full-body mummification became more common. Also, it appears that the early Egyptians did not remove the organs from dead bodies, as they would go on to do later.

Armed now with research suggesting more advanced burial techniques than ever imagined for the early Egyptians, Buckley hopes to look at later burial grounds. His goal is to learn more about how funerals and civilizations developed over time.

"In the past it was almost like these people were not allowed to be seen as sophisticated," he said. "Now, because of the science, I hope there will be a big reassessment."