The Mummy Congress

After covering a conference of mummy experts, science reporter Heather Pringle became so intrigued with mummies that she spent a year circling the globe, visiting leading scientists in the field. She also investigated preserved Italian saints, Scandinavian mummies in bogs, and frozen Inca princesses. Pringle researched Egyptian embalmers, the past public craze for mummy unwrappings, and the Russians' attempts to preserve Stalin, and along the way learned what mummies have to tell us about ourselves.