This is a nicely written, and somewhat personal, book (with colour photographs) about the author's quest to discover the meaning of death by taking a look at the cultures that preserved the bodies of their dead. Reid starts off in the Old World with the mummies of the Taklamakan desert, Siberia,the bog people of northern Europe, the mummies of Ancient Egypt and the Canary Islands. He then moves on to the mummy cultures of South America - the Chinchorros, the 'Cloud People' and what remains of the Inca mummies. The author provides a description of the preserved bodies, how the mummies were created, some information about the cultures that produced them and a fair amount of speculation (where information is completely absent) about the religious views of these peoples and why they preserved their dead in this fashion. This book is an overview of the various mummy cultures - not an extensive text on the subject. I found this book to provide an fascinating glimpse into ancient civilizations and their view of the afterlife.

OTHER BOOKS

The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West by J.P Mallory
Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead by Heather Pringle [more scientific look at mummies]
Ice Maiden: Inca Mummies, Mountain Gods, and Sacred Sites in the Andes by Johan Reinhard
Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe's Ancient Mystery by Miranda Aldhouse-Green
Iceman by Brenda Fowler [aka how not to do archaeology]
The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor
( )

Mummies/Future life