Were the eyes of Mummies removed? Why or why not?

Question

I'm doing a write up for mummies in my ancient history class, and i need to know if the eyes were removed from the Mummy, and if so, why?

Answer 1

Here's what I found about the mummification process:

"The first step in producing a worthy mummy is to remove all traces of water. Water permits the bacteria, which are responsible for the process of decay, to thrive and multiply. Consider a raisin – it is essentially the mummy of a grape. Therefore, the primary goal of the ancient mummifier was extracting as much water as possible from the corpse."

http://mutnodjmetsmusings.blogspot.com/2...

"The eyeballs were often pushed into eye socket and covered with linen pads. Sometimes eyes were painted onto the linen, but eventually the Egyptians began to use stone or glass eyes. Some mummies received onion skins and occasionally whole onions for eyes."

http://www.mummytombs.com/egypt/insides....

"and false eyes were placed within the eye cavities."

http://touregypt.net/magazine/mag0601200...

"Their eye sockets would be filled with linen or fake eyeballs depending on the time."

http://historylink101.net/egypt_1/religi...

"Next the eyes were removed, and replaced with either cotton, or fake eyeballs. "

http://virtualology.com/hallofanthropolo...

Most of the eyeball is water so the dehydration process would have destroyed the eyeballs. Drying would leave very little material.

Most probable is the eyes would be removed and placed in one of the canopic jars. One of the various treatments (cover, fake eye, padding) would then be used as replacement.

Answer 2

yes because they will eat it