Mummies are usually associated with Egypt, but they have been found all over the world, in places like China, Greenland, and even Alaska.
Mummies occur when a body is dried after death.
If a body is left moist in open space, bacteria will eat away until only a skeleton is left, but if a body is dried and wrapped in certain chemicals, it will remain as a husk of what a person looked like in life. It is also possible to use smoke, extreme sun, dust or cold to dry a body, and sometimes this occurs unexpectedly in nature. Mummies have been fully preserved in ice, snow, bogs and mud. As a consequence, we often study naturally preserved bodies and bodies of embalmed kings from ancient lands side by side. When a body is ritually embalmed, it is often believed that the process will bring the person into the afterlife.