? This is not allowed. Mummy meat pieces are very common in ancient Egyptian funerals, dating back to 3300 BC. This tradition of mummification lasted until the 4th century AD. When the famous Pharaoh Tutankhamun was finally buried, 48 pieces of beef and poultry were buried with him. But the mummified meat is basically untouched.

Richard Evershed, a biogeochemical worker at Bristol University, and his colleagues are very curious about how to make these pieces of meat. They also want to know whether the method of making mummified meat pieces is different from that of manufacturers or pet mummies.

The research team analyzed four mummified meat samples preserved in Cairo and the British Museum. The oldest sample is a beef rib taken from the graves of an Egyptian lady Tjuiu and her husband Yuya. This piece of beef can be traced back to BC 1386 to BC 1349. The second sample can be traced back to 1064 BC to 948 BC, from the tomb of Istemkheb D. It is made of veal. The last two samples come from the tomb of Hnat Mehmet, a Thebes priestess who died around 1290 BC. One of them is venison, and the other may be goat meat.

The researchers made a chemical analysis of four samples of bandages or meat. They found that animal fat covered steaks and goat mummies. In the veal sample, the animal fat was applied to the bandage without direct contact with the meat, which indicated that the animal fat was used as a preservative instead of infiltrating from the inside. However, the most interesting chemical situation appears in dried beef. The bandages used by mummies contain sesame oil and the residue of pistachio resin made of fat or oil. This resin was a luxury in ancient Egypt, and it was used for incense and painting high-quality coffins. The researchers believe that it makes sense that there are a lot of antiseptic substances on the mummy beef.