Fourteen samples of modern hair from various age groups, sex and ethnicity were subjected to synthetic natron for a period of 40 days to replicate the time taken to mummify a body. To determine if exposure to natron during the mummification process was responsible for the fair hair color an experiment was carried out to partially replicate the environment in which bodies were desiccated. In the majority of unwrapped ancient Egyptian mummified bodies the hair was not fair but rather dark brown or black.

The cutis revealed radiological signs of direct interaction with the natron in the form of covering and possibly permeation.' (Stephanie Panzer, Farzad Borumundi, Johann Wanek, Christina Papageorgopoulou, Natallia Shved, Giovanni Colacicco, Frank Ruhli.In an examination of three unwrapped mummified children from the Graeco-Roman Period of ancient Egypt there was an unexpected finding of fair hair. Evaluated tissues revealed different radiological changes during the experiment, which altogether led to preservation of the tissues without radiologically indentifiable destruction.

Their conclusion states 'Radiological findings showed a regular, controlled and effective dehydration by the applied natron without detectable putrefaction. The limb was dehydrated by the natron and without atrophy. CT and MRI scans were performed throughout testing and the results found were supportive of what we believe of mummification in ancient Egypt. They received a lower limb from a donor post-mortem and mummified it with artificial natron in the same processes and recipes shown by ancient Egyptians. Members of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery from Paracelsus Medical University, and the Institute of Anatomy from the University of Zurich teamed up in research on the artificial mummification of human tissue by natron.

Natron egypt