Even some pharaohs had to make do with recycled linen sheets. Linen was expensive, so in poorer burials clothing was recycled as bandages.
The body was then ready to be wrapped in linen. In some cases the dummy eyes were formed from quartz or stone but in more than one case they used small onions! Sometimes the skin was painted (red for a man, yellow for a woman) and makeup applied. False eyes were placed under the eyelids. Once the body was dry, the natron was carefully washed off and the body was packed with linen, sawdust and other materials such as incense resins and spices to return it to a more natural shape. Natron and sweet smelling resins were also packed into the body cavity, and the body was left for seventy days (or so). Next, the body had to be dried out by being covered in natron (a natural salt). The other organs were dried (desiccated), preserved in resins and oils, and wrapped in linen before being placed in the canopic jars (or on the body). A small cut was made in the body to allow the embalmer to remove the internal organs (evisceration), but not the heart (which they though was the source of a person’s personality and intelligence). The embalmer used a hooked tool to break the ethmoid bone in the nose, and scoop out the brain (excerebration), which they threw away.
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