If one organ was worth preserving and taking to the afterlife, it should have been the brain.

That is where this book begins.

The Human Brain in Ancient Egypt

A Medical and Historical Re-evaluation of Its Function and Importance
Archaeopress Archaeology, 2023 · ISBN 978-1-80327-477-5

The literature has long held that Egyptian embalmers removed the brain because it served no purpose, its functions having been assigned to the heart. This book tests that claim rather than repeating it.

Three lines of evidence are brought together: a radiological survey of 33 mummified subjects using the IMPACT database, an examination of the medical papyri for references to the brain, and an inspection of the palaeopathological record for cranial injuries and the treatments that followed them.

The results do not support the received view. Treatment of the brain was not significantly different from that of the visceral organs, and the notion that it was discarded as unnecessary in the afterlife proves unsubstantiated. A number of long-accepted features of mummification no longer hold up to scrutiny.

“You methodically and strongly and correctly refute the long-held misconception about lack of importance that the brain had for the Ancient Egyptians.”

Gonzalo M. Sanchez M.D., Life Member, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and co-author with Edmund S. Meltzer of The Edwin Smith Papyrus: Updated Translation of the Trauma Treatise and Modern Medical Commentaries