Monomania

Categories: Science , Nonfiction

I’m again enjoying some books recommended to me by other librarians.  You can’t get a group of book people together without an exchange like that. 

So it seems amusingly appropriate that one of the books recommended to me is about another group of single-minded eccentrics—The Mummy Congress, by Heather Pringle.

Pringle is a popular science journalist who writes about archeology.  She heard of a scientific conference being held in a remote town in Chile:  mummy experts gather every three years for an international convention.  They all know each other and represent an astonishing collection of subspecialties, enthusiasms, and factions.  Pringle attended and became obsessed with their obsession, and this book is the result. 

It’s a somewhat meandering work, ranging from the controversy over medical dissection (the book’s creepiest section), the history of European fascination with Egyptian mummies, and the modern preservation of bodies like Lenin’s.  Bog bodies, ice mummies, the find of Caucasian bodies in Chinese tombs, the sanctification of incorruptible saints’ bodies—there’s a little bit of everything here.  It won’t be enough to satisfy your curiosity if the subject intrigues you, but it’s certainly a glimpse into a strange world few of us know much about.