When Alan Billis saw an advert on television about a company who were looking for a dead body on which to practice the ancient art of mummification, he applied and got the job. He is now famous after death when he appeared in the documentary Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret which aired on Channel 4 in the UK last night.
Alan Billis and his wife
He knew he was dying of lung cancer and wanted to be part of an experiment practiced by the ancient Egyptians 3,000 years ago. His wife and grown up children were reluctant at first but finally agreed to go along with his wishes. The 61 year old taxi driver has been dubbed Torquay's Tutankhamun.
Stephen Buckley and Alan Billis
Chemist Stephen Buckley spent 20 years trying to uncover the secrets of preserving bodies and passed his findings onto Professor Peter Vanezis who mummified Alan Billis's body. He died in January and over a period of months, the professor removed all his internal organs (except the brain and heart), through a four inch cut on his left side and kept them in a jar. The body cavity was then sterilized with alcohol and packed with small linen bags to hold its shape.
Then the body was immersed in a mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate and soda ash found in dried out river beds in Egypt. Sesame oil and beeswax were applied to protect the skin.
After one month, the body was taken out of the solution and dried out in a heated chamber to replicate the high temperature and low humidity of Egypt. Then finally the body was wrapped in linen bandages to allow drying to continue, keep the limbs intact and keep out light and insects. At the end of three months, the process was complete.
His body is expected to keep for several thousand years and will be studied by scientists researching decomposition.
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