Rat Mummification Project: May 2004 Archives

Continuing my tireless crusade to make this blog even more thoroughly uninteresting than previously thought possible: Allow me to present you with wax. And resins.

Beeswax, pine resin, frankincense tears.

Like the oils from the previous rat-mummy post, I ordered the frankincense and pine resin from online. (Plenty of art stores peddle beeswax.) I still need some myrrh pieces, but they were backordered at Camden-Grey.

This crud will be melted into a slurry and used to make Beavis' bandages stick together.

I'm going to have a lot of frankincense left over when I'm done here, so I've decided to use the leftovers as incense. But the incense burners at the stinky hippie shops are so Godawful lame, Sculpey dragons and wizards and skeletons and crap that looks like it belings on a metal album dust jacket. So I'll be getting some clay and making my own.

I'm torn between shaping it like a overturned bus full of disabled children or like a burning rowhouse. Also considering a whale-oil rendering plant surrounded by itty-bitty shards of bone and a crematorium. We'll have to see.

With Beavis curing under a few pounds of natron, it's probably time to start getting together everything I'll need for the final steps of the mummification. That includes a few essential oils.

Left to right: A gallon bucket of palm oil, camphor oil, cedar oil, cassia oil, myrrh oil, frankincense oil.

If anyone has any tips about the practical uses of palm oil, let me know. I'll probably have three quarters of a gallon on my hands when this is over with.

I was expecting a battle, but the oils were actually pretty easy to find, thanks to the amount of faith put into aromatherapy these days. They're generally sold by the dram. One dram is 1/8th of an ounce, or 120 drops. I got me lotsa drams.

You can find essential oils for as much as $175.00 a bottle in specialty stores for people with more patchouli than brains, or as little as $1.79 on eBay. Pays to comparison shop. I went with Camden-Grey Essential Oils, a little home business I Googled up online. No complaints, except for that whole we-only-sell-palm-oil-by-the-gallon thing.

This stuff will be used to anoint Beavis's skin, fur, body cavity, and bandages, although a surprisng number of hippie quacks think I should be huffing it like kerosene and model glue for its nebulous, staggeringly unlikely health benefits. I'll admit that the stuff's antiseptic, fungicidal and insecticidal; mummies got the dunk for a reason. But I'll wait for the FDA to rule before I consider frankincense a "uterine tonic."

From the people that brought you colloidal silver and homeopathic dilution: VAGINAL OIL SNUFFLING.

"How can I tell if my uterus can smell it from here, Guru Sunflower? Maybe I need a speculum... do they come in hemp?"

Days ago, I promised you all I'd mummfiy my recently deceased rat, Beavis, to the best of my ability. I also promised you that I'd take pictures while I did it. Ever since then, you've clamored for the photos. POSITIVELY CLAMORED.

Clamor no longer, cuz we're in business. The photographs are up. And they're here. Go nuts.

Remember, THESE ARE PICTURES OF RAT GUTS. THEY'RE DOUBLE LIFE-SIZED AND FULL COLOR. I'M NOT KIDDING. You know yourselves better than I do, so I'm going to expect you to use your own judgement as to whether or not you're ready to watch me carve up a dead rat like a rack of lamb.

Since Beavis has got more than a few weeks to go before he's ready, this is the last of the gore until June. Make it last, cuz from here on out, it's all about lapis lazuli, ushabtis, and other criminally boring crap you've got no real interest in.

Matt, my husband, deserves a lot of credit for helping me out on this one. He even let me chuck a rock at him after he made the initial cut, in accordance with tradition. He caught it, though. Which kind of buggered the ambiance.

But I dig him anyway. <3

Beavis the rat, Companion of Neil the rat, Gnawer of My Goddamn Speaker Cables, Destroyer of The Couch, Despoiler of Chocolate, Chewer of Dreadlocks, and Grand High Excitable Urinator, went to Osiris this morning an hour before his veterinary appointment at around 8:25 AM. His cause of death was probably mycoplasmal infection, although only a vet would really know for sure. For what it's worth, he had all the symptoms.

When his little heart is weighed before the divine tribunal against the feather of the goddess Ma’at, I'm sure Anubis will will find him worthy of immortality and lead his sahu before the throne of Osiris, and he shall dwell forever with the gods and the stars.

But not before he's a proper mummy.

Today's shopping list:

frankincense oil
myrrh oil
palm oil
lotus oil
cedar oil
camphor oil
beeswax
palm wine or palm wine substitute
cassia
myrrh
frankincense
pine resin
beading wire
carnelian beads
turquoise beads
lapis lazuli beads
Wadjet-eye
ankh
scarabs
muslin
Egyptian linen

More later tonight. For the confused, catch up here.

UPDATE: Jesus, that was a mess. Educational, but damn am I exhausted. Pictures and horrible, lurid descriptions tomorrow.