Resins used to prepare bodies for the afterlife are found in vessels in an ancient workshop.
An embalming workshop unearthed at Saqqara, Egypt, an ancient burial ground, has provided insight on the chemicals used in embalming in ancient Egyptian societies. In this workshop, pots containing labelled chemicals were found. GCMS analysis of the contents revealed that while there were many local materials, some originated from as far as Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. For example, one pot contained elemi, a resin that comes from Canarium trees that grow in Asian and African rainforests. Another contained dammar, also a resin, from Shorea trees in tropical south Asia and southeast Asia. How ancient Egyptian civilisations traded for these materials from Asia/Africa is unclear.
