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Once and even today, the religious and burial customs of the Copts differ from one social class to anot­her, even from cities to the countryside. In general, these diverse customs which are observed in food, drinks, clothes and inhumation; sometimes include certain survivals from the ancient Egyptian civilization with­out the actual population knowing it. We shall study details and methods of the interment, ceremonies, funerary processions and the immortalization of the memory of the defunct among the Copts, which vary according to the religious importance, age, sex, and the social class of the deceased, whether he belongs to the Priest­hood of the Coptic Church, or be one of the Coptic notables or a normal person of the Coptic community. Autrefois et même aujourd’hui, les coutumes religieuses et funéraires chez les Coptes diffèrent d’une classe sociale à une autre et même de la ville à la campagne. En général, ces diverses coutumes qui se voient dans la nourriture, les boissons, l’habillement et l’inhumation comportent parfois quelques survivances de l’ancienne civilisation égyptienne et parfois la population actuelle ne le sait pas. Ainsi, nous traiterons les dé­tails et les méthodes de l’enterrement, des cérémonies et des cortèges funéraires, l’immortalisation du souve­nir des défunts chez les Coptes qui varient selon l’importance religieuse, l’âge, le sexe et la classe sociale du défunt, qu’il soit un des symboles religieux de l’Église Copte Orthodoxe, un des notables de la société copte ou bien une personne normale de la communauté copte.

This PhD work is part of HELYCOM (Human Egyptian LYon COnfluences Mummies) scientificproject as part of Archimedes Labex, led by an interdisciplinary research team. The presentobjective is to characterize and identify the nature of chemical elements present in mummificationbalms from 10 whole mummies and 33 mummies heads from ancient Egypt. The individuals comefrom the Egyptian collection of the Musée des Confluences in Lyon and they have never beenstudied before.Given the wide variety of natural substances that can be used in the formulation of balms,different analytical techniques, each providing complementary information, were used such asFourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) and Gas Chromatography Coupled to Mass Spectrometry (GCMS).The infrared spectroscopy study was carried out on 61 mummy balm samples to characterize thedifferent chemical families present. Given the large number of samples studied, statistical analyseswere carried out by Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC) in order to group them intoclusters and thus to compare them with each other in terms of their chemical composition. Priorto the chromatographic analyses, an extraction step was developed using a conventional solvent.In addition, in order to perform molecular identification, the development of a novel solid phaseextraction protocol has been successfully developed and optimized. The whole of this study haspermitted to characterize different balm compositions associated with different formulations andstates of alteration and/or degradation. Plant oil, animal fat, beeswax, di- and triterpenic resins,bitumen, correspond to all the identified substances. An interpretation of the alteration anddegradation processes of diterpenic molecules was carried out in Principal Component Analysis(PCA).; Ce travail de thèse s'inscrit dans le cadre du projet scientifique HELYCOM (Human Egyptian LYonCOnfluences Mummies) dans le Labex Archimede, mené par une équipe de recherche interdisciplinaire. Ici, l'objectif est de caractériser et d'identifier la nature des éléments chimiques présents dans la constitution des baumes de momification issus de 10 momies entières et 33 têtes de momies d'Égypte ancienne. Les individus proviennent de la collection égyptienne et d’ostéologie du Musée des Confluences à Lyon et ils n’avaient jamais été étudiés jusqu’alors. Étant donné la grande variété de substances naturelles pouvant être utilisée dans la formulation des baumes, différentes techniques d'analyse, chacune fournissant des informations complémentaires, ont été employées telles que l'infrarouge à transformée de Fourier (IR-TF) et la chromatographie en phase gazeuse couplée à un spectromètre de masse (CPG-SM).L’étude par spectroscopie infrarouge a été effectuée sur les 61 échantillons de baumes de momies permettant de caractériser les différentes familles chimiques présentes. Compte-tenu du nombre conséquent de prélèvements étudiés, des analyses statistiques ont été réalisées par Classification Ascendante Hiérarchique (CAH) afin de les regrouper en cluster et ainsi pouvoir les comparer entre eux du point de vue de leur composition chimique. Préalablement aux analyses chromatographiques, une étape d’extraction a été élaborée via l’utilisation conventionnelle d’un solvant. De plus, afin de parfaire l’identification moléculaire, la mise au point d’un nouveau protocole d'extraction en phase solide a été développée et optimisée avec succès. L’ensemble de cette étude a permis de caractériser différentes compositions de baumes associées à diverses formulations et états d’altération et/ou de dégradation. Huile végétale, graisse animale, cire d’abeille, résines di- et triterpéniques, bitume, correspondent à l’ensemble des substances identifiées. Une interprétation des procédés d’altération et de dégradation des molécules diterpéniques a été menée en Analyses en Composantes Principales (ACP).

The recent discovery of the earliest hominin cancer, a 1.7-million-year-old osteosarcoma from South Africa has raised the question of the origin of cancer and its determinants. We aimed to determine whether malignant and benign tumors exist in the past societies.A review of literature using Medline database and Google about benign and malignant tumors in prehistory and antiquity. Only cases with morphological and paraclinical analysis were included. The following keywords were used: cancer; paleopathology; malignant neoplasia; benign tumor; leiomyoma; myoma; breast cancer; mummies; soft tissue tumor; Antiquity.Thirty-five articles were found in wich there were 34 malignant tumors, 10 benign tumors and 11 gynecological benign tumors.The fact that there were some malignant tumors, even few tumors and probably underdiagnosed, in the past may be evidence that cancer is not only a disease of the modern world. Cancer may be indeed a moving target: we have likely predisposing genes to cancer inherited from our ancestors. The malignant disease could therefore appear because of our modern lifestyle (carcinogens and risk factors related to the modern industrial society).

Today, the development of analytic methods brings new scientific insights into the research on the mummification process used by embalmers in ancient Egypt. The application of these techniques of molecular analysis, elementary analysis, botanical analysis and bibliographic analysis of ancient texts allows us to know the composition of mummification balms and material involved in the conservation of the body. Such substances, which are mineral, animal or plant material, played a practical and a symbolic part in the composition of balms used for the preservation of mummified bodies and therefore in the passage to the eternal life after the death. The comparison of analysis results can inform us about changes in embalming techniques depending of the time, the place of mummification, the deceased's social status. However the number of mummies studied is very small compared to the number of bodies that were mummified. Finally the techniques of mummification and making balms were very variable according to practitioners and their modus operandi. Today, using these technic of chemical analysis and medical imaging techniques, we can authenticate and reconstruct the history of museum pieces, as we have done in the unpublished studies conducted in support of literature data previously collected.

To further explore early Eurasian steppe migration, we determined the Y chromosome and mitochondrial haplotypes of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area, dated between the middle of the second millennium BC and the fourth century AD. Our autosomal Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal that, whereas few specimens seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, nearly all the subjects belong to haplogroup R1a1--M17, which is thought to mark the eastward migration of early Indo-Europeans. Our results also confirm that, during the Bronze and Iron Ages, southern Siberia was a region of overwhelming European settlement.

Among archaeological materials, human remains as mummy skin bear precious and specific witness of ancient burial practices and lifestyles. They also give access to informations about degradations processes of biological tissues over a very long time scale.Chemical imaging, especially using cluster TOF-SIMS imaging, was applied to analyze complex hybrid materials. Using other analytical methods as a complement (SEM-EDX, FT-IR, DRX) this study could precise the structure and composition of human skin microsamples, from artificial and natural mummies. To achieve it, the crucial sample preparation step should be optimized.To understand the degradation processes, particularly proteic ones, ancient and modern biological tissues of similar composition (bones, horns, wool, silk, hair) were also analyzed.Our work could thus emphasize the benefit of TOF-SIMS imaging to understand mummification and degradation processes of tissues during centuries.; Parmi les matériaux archéologiques, les restes humains, comme la peau de momie,constituent un héritage précieux et particulier des pratiques funéraires et des modes de vieanciens. Ils donnent également accès à des informations sur la dégradation des tissusbiologiques sur des échelles de temps particulièrement longues. L’imagerie chimique, notamment par spectrométrie de masse TOF-SIMS a été appliquée à l’analyse de ces matériaux hybrides, particulièrement complexes. Complétée par d’autresméthodes d’analyse (MEB-EDX, FT-IR, DRX), cette étude a permis de préciser la structure etla composition de micro-échantillons de peau de momies naturelles ou artificielles. Pour cela,l’étape cruciale de préparation des échantillons a été optimisée. Afin de comprendre les processus de dégradations, protéiques en particulier, des tissus biologiques, anciens et modernes, de composition proches ont également été analysés (os,cornes, laine, soie, cheveux et poils animaux). Notre étude a ainsi pu mettre en évidence l’apport de l’imagerie TOF-SIMS pour comprendre les processus de préparation des corps et de dégradation des tissus au cours dessiècles.

Bitumen, which results of the storage of organic material and of the decomposition in process of time, was used since ancient times for cosmetic, art and the caulk of boats. So, mummies were treated by bitumen to improve their preservation. But bitumen was held to be useful to cure varying pulmonary, digestive, ENT troubles and even to set fractures. Besides, bitumen was used to realize the first photograph. In Iran, bitumen is yet used to improve the quality of the skin, but mixed with to limit its toxicity.

International audience; The excavations of the Mission Archéologique Française du Bubasteion (MAFB) directed by Alain Zivie have provided thousands of bones and hundreds of mummies of cats. Since the beginning of the 1990s, 331 mummies have been X-rayed. The study of 272 mummies has allowed us to classify individuals into 3 categories (young, young adults and adults) and to highlight that more than two-thirds of these animals were deliberately killed. A new study of these X-ray photographs compared to a new frame of reference concerning the age of synostosis of the bones from present domestic cats allows us to specify the age at death of these animals. New questions arise, for example: Was there a recommended age to kill these cats and to turn them into mummies? Was the age of the slaughtered animals different from the age of the animals that died a natural death?; Les fouilles de la Mission Archéologique Française du Bubasteion (MAFB) dirigées par Alain Zivie ont livré des milliers d'ossements et des centaines de momies de chats. Dans les années 1990, 331 momies ont été radiographiées et l'étude de 272 d'entre-elles a déjà permis de classer les individus en 3 catégories (jeunes, jeunes adultes et adultes) Un nouveau référentiel des âges de synostose des os de chats, appliqué à ces momies radiographiées a permis de préciser l'âge de mort des ces animaux et mettre en évidence qu'environ les deux tiers des individus étaient morts de mort violente par écrasement de la boite crânienne et/ou étirement et une torsion du cou. De nouvelles questions se posent alors : un âge était préconisé pour abattre et momifier ces chats ? L'âge des animaux abattus différait-il de l'âge des animaux morts naturellement ?

Sickness befallen onto him, man found that plant and animal derivatives invigorated him. Thereafter, he found a therapeutic benefit in using man as a means of self cure and especially, dead man from violent death. The foam of the skull of cadaver was an excellent antiepileptic as well as blood coming out from a freshly decapitated man. By applying on diseased parts of his body, so as to get rid of inflammation or infection, cadaver's hands were used against tumors of all kinds. Dead human skin were processed into belts and used therein for helping delivery of parturition women. The mummy must be blackish, foul smelling and hard. Those who were whitish, odorless and powder-like, were unfit for use. Mummy powder applied to the nose would stop nose bleeding. Ambroise Paré (1510-1590) was an adversary of those practices.

Did Tuberculosis plague Ancient Egypt five millennia ago?Some medical papyri appear to evoke tuberculosis. Egyptian physicians did not individualize it, but they seem to have noticed some of its clinical expressions, such as cough, cervical adenitis, and cold abscesses. In Egyptian iconography, some cases of hump-backs were probably due to Pott's disease of the spine Descriptive paleopathology, born with the 20th century, has identified pulmonary and especially spinal lesions compatible with tuberculosis.Progress of molecular biology has made a decisive contribution with the diagnosis of tuberculosis on ancient samples. Tuberculosis has been identified using PCR in nearly a third of the Egyptian mummies recently examined. Spoligotyping has made it possible to re-evaluate the phylogenic tree of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in Ancient Egypt.Tuberculosis certainly plagued the Nile Valley and appears to have been an important cause of mortality in Ancient Egypt.

Paleopathology is useful for our knowledge of the natural history of cancer. However, the interpretation of neoplasms (retrospective diagnosis and past epidemiology) is one of the more interesting and difficult aspects of paleopathology. Paleopathology of cancer may be also useful for pathography and, sometimes, demonstrates a linkage between history and legend. The epidermoid cyst diagnosed on the vault of Saint Aubert, the founder of the Mont Saint Michel (France), supplies a such example.

Three mummies--one of a woman and two of a woman and a child--are nowadays presented in the Museum of Anatomy Testut-Latarjet in Lyon. They have been brought in 1901 from Egypt to the Museum Guimet of Lyon and after a few years, they have been given to Professor Testut and studied by Louis Paul Fisher and Frederique Cantero in a thesis of medicine of Lyon (1991). They have been examined by x-rays non-invasive scanning by Professor Michel Bochut. Finally Professor Jean-Claude Goyon, chairman in the "Maison de l'Orient", proposed to date them from the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century, after the designs and the ornaments of the clothes.

Depuis le début du 20e siècle, la recherche des maladies parasitaires a motivé la communauté scientifique européenne et américaine. L’application des méthodes de diagnostic de la coprologie médicale actuelle à des échantillons archéologiques de plus en plus variés a permis d’enrichir les données de la paléopathologie, par la découverte de maladies infectieuses jusqu’alors non détectées. Since the beginning of the 20th century, research into parasitic diseases has been carried out in the European and American scientific community. The application of the diagnostic methods of current medical coprology to increasingly varied archaeological samples has made it possible to augment the data for Palaeopathology by the discovery of other infectious diseases not before detected.

Discovered in 1908 in a lead coffin conserved in a stone sarcophagus, the mummy of the "fin Renard" (Bourges, France), was immediately identified as that of a gallo-roman child. The circumstances of his death as the extraordinary conservation of this body were the object of many conclusions related to contemporeanous medico-historical knowledge and limited by partial investigation potentiality. The application of the most actual paleopathological methods and techniques permitted a more precise observation of this unique but surprising French specimen. However, after many radiographic, scannographic, fibroscopic and microscopic studies, the little mummy conserves many of its mysteries...

The microbiological study of mummies has started in 1910 when Sir M.A. Ruffer first applied the histologic methods to the study of mummified tissues and found Schistosoma haematobium ovas dated from the XXth dynasty. Up to the 1990 years, morphological methods including radiology, computed tomography, endoscopy, history, electron microscopy, and serology have been the main tools used in Paleopathology. They led to identify schistosomiasis, dracunculiasis, trichinosis, ascariasis and bone tuberculosis as the most prevalent diseases of the ancient residents of Egypt. The recent introduction of molecular methods (PCR) allowed t confirm the high prevalence of helminth diseases and tuberculosis among these populations, but also added new data exemplified by the widespread distribution of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. In addition, cases of bacterial septicemias and diphteria possibily occurred. Thousands of human and animal mummies remain to be studied with the hope to discover another pathogens responsible for viral or zoonotic infections prevalent during the pharaons' times.

The instruments of the Embalmer Priest. Studies on the practice of embalming in ancient Egypt have mostly neglected the instruments used by embalmers to make their activity easier. Only three embalmer's caches contained embalmers' instruments, but some further objects have been found in museum collections. We have created bronze reproductions of these tools which then used on a corpse at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris VII.

Thanks to the medical scanning techniques and the reliability of some applications programs in 3D reconstruction, we are now able to explain an observation methodology based on the example of an anthropology study on Egyptian mummies'heads through a non-destructive proceeding. We have managed to demonstrate the exploration of the cervicofacial anatomy in the three dimensions of space and the possibility of dissociating the different anatomical tissues. The authors would like to point out the various consequences such a methodology may engender in any field.

In 1901 Albert Gayet raked up from Antinoe three mummies exhibited to day at the Anatomy Museum of Lyon. The study of the three mummies was made in detail as to their dress, anthropometric and scannographic findings. The clothes were characteristic of coptic civilization. The radiographic date gave a life span of around 40 years. The X-ray imagery shows the remains of cerebral and visceral organs. The sexual criteria are thought to be those of two women and undetermined for the child. Later, several investigations like endoscopic autopsy, tooth microscopy and chromosomic map will be necessary.

The recent development of studies applied to ancient materials may be explained by the application of molecular biology techniques on the extracted ancient DNA mainly the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the ultrasensitive DNA-amplification technique that hit the headlines in the late 1980s. PCR was used to amplify human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), genetic material in stored tissue specimens and to document people who died in 1976. In addition, recent discoveries of mummified bodies in ice of the Tyrolean Alps or Greenland allowed a new approach in archeological studies. Mummies are a good material for investigations of ancient tissues. The studies concern the techniques of embalming, tissue preservation and palepathological aspects. In cutaneous paleopathology, mummies from Egypt, South or North America and Europe were considered. Various skin lesions were characterized: histiocytoma, Chagas' disease, smallpox, syphilis. Recently drugs (cocaine, hashish and nicotine) were extracted from skin and head hair of Egyptian mummies. Only a few studies were concerned with the ultrastructure of the skin of such mummies.We had the opportunity to obtain skin samples of two Egyptian mummies. One of them was embalmed between 150 BC-90 AC. The skin was studied by transmission electron microscopy. As the mummified materials had dried out and shrunk, it was necessary to rehydrate them for ultrastructural observation. Skin samples were fragmented into small pieces before fixation with 2 p. 100 glutaraldehyde in sodium cacodylate buffer for 10 days (allowing for removal of the materials used for embalming). The samples were then washed in the same buffer for 10 days. After washing the pieces were post-fixed with 1 p. 100 osmium tetroxyde, dehydrated and embedded in Epoxy medium.With this process, it was possible to observe the excellent preservation of the cutaneous structures. The epidermis was well preserved. It was possible to observe the different cell layers and mainly the upper layers. The nuclei and the desmosomes of keratinocytes were recognized. Intercellular spaces were narrow. Desmosomes showed dense thickenings of the cell membrane on both sides and an intercellular band with narrow lucent spaces adjacent to the dense cell membrane. The nuclei showed dense spots of chromatin and in the cytoplasm recognizable tonofilament bundles were identified. Langerhans cells and melanocytes were not observed. In the dermis, the collagen fibrils formed thick bundles and showed the characteristic axial periodicity. Elastic fibers were also recognized showing two main components: the amorphous substance and the fibrils. Throughout the dermis, a number of round or oval structures were found. They had the typical appearance of spores of bacteria. In the centre, they had an electron dense and granular core surrounded by an inner membrane and a spore coat.Only a few investigations were performed on the ultrastructure of the skin of the Egyptian mummies. In the majority of cases, the epidermis was not preserved. The present work demonstrates the good preservation of epidermal structures and specially desmosomes and intercellular connections. The presence of spores of bacteria was previously reported. These spores enter a highly resistant resting phase in order to survive in a dormant state for a long period of starvation or other adverse environmental conditions. Similar investigations were performed on skin obtained from Eskimo mummies preserved by the extremely cold and dry polar weather. In these conditions, the authors reported the observation of melanocytes, vessels and nerves. Additionally, biochemical investigations demonstrated the very good preservation of collagen and glycosaminoglycans of the dermal extracellular matrix.