The Story of the Mummy

Author: Compiled by Cao Xinyu from the U.S. publisher Cengage Learning
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features:
- The series content is selected from the most popular American youth-themed magazines.
- Extended reading material on the themes of university and high school English textbooks.
- Ideal material for high school English elective courses.
- The best teaching resources for inquiry-based learning.
Whether naturally formed or skillfully crafted by humans, mummies always appear in the most unexpected places. No one understands this better than a group of treasure hunters searching for Egyptian tombs. They stumbled upon a sealed earthenware jar. Inside the jar was honey, so they decided to taste it. When one of them dipped bread into the jar, he noticed a strand of hair wrapped around his hand, though he couldn’t remember when it had happened. After taking out the bread, he realized the hair had come from the body of a child preserved in the thick, sweet substance. Clearly, the honey had well-preserved the body.
Scientists study mummies not out of morbid curiosity, but to understand humanity’s rich cultural heritage and to better address human health issues in the future. Whether the sacrifice of Juanita five hundred years ago appeased the wrath of the Andes mountains—or whether this practice, which shocks modern sensibilities—her dried remains, along with other mummies, still offer us and future generations abundant scientific and cultural treasures.