Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 8, DIA-England

676 E M B
Emathia There were two kinds of emancipation ; the one tacit,
II which was by the son’s being promoted to some dignity,
Embalm, j^g coming 0f agej 0r by his marrying, in all which
. cases he became his own master of course ; the other ex¬
press, where the father declared before a judge that he
emancipated his son. In performing this act, the father
executed an imaginary sale of his son to another person,
who was called pater fiduciarius, or father in trust; from
whom the son was immediately purchased by the natural
father, who thereafter manumitted him before the judge
by a verbal declaration.
EMATHIA, the ancient name of Macedonia, which
was afterwards restricted to the country in the immediate
vicinity of Edessa. This district was originally a part of
Pseonia, and contained the extensive and fertile plains on
the banks of the rivers Axius and Erigonus. (Polyb. Frag.
xxiv. 8; Liv. x. 4, 11.) In the time of the Romans Ema¬
thia must have extended much farther to the south, as
Ptolemy includes in this district the cities of Berrhoea and
Pella.
EMBALMING is the opening of a dead body, taking
out the intestines, and filling the space with odoriferous
and desiccative drugs and spices, in order to prevent pu¬
trefaction and decomposition. The Egj'ptians excelled
all other nations in the art of preserving bodies from cor¬
ruption ; for some that were embalmed several thousand
years ago remain whole to this day, and are often brought
as curiosities into other countries. Their manner of em¬
balming was this: They scooped the brain with an iron
scoop out at the nostrils, and threw in medicaments to fill
up the vacuum ; they also took out the entrails, and having
filled the body with myrrh, cassia, and other spices (ex¬
cept frankincense), proper to dry up the humours, they
pickled it in nitre, where it lay soaking for seventy days.
The body was then wrapped up in bandages of fine linen
and gums, to make it stick like glue ; and so was delivered
to the kindred of the deceased, entire in all its features,
the very hairs of the eyelids being preserved. They used
to keep the bodies of their ancestors, thus embalmed, in
apartments magnificently adorned, and took great pleasure
in beholding them, alive as it were, without any change in
their size, features, or complexion. The Egyptians also
embalmed birds and other animals. The prices for em¬
balming were different; the highest was a talent, the next
twenty minae, and so on, decreasing to a very small matter.
But they who had not wherewithal to answer this ex¬
pense contented themselves with infusing, by means of a
syringe, through the fundament, a certain liquor extract¬
ed from the cedar; and, leaving it there, wrapped up the
body in salt of nitre. The oil thus infused preyed upon the
intestines, so that when they took it out, the intestines
came away with it, dried, and not in the least putrefied ;
and the body being inclosed in nitre, grew dry, nothing
remaining besides the skin glued upon the bones. The
process of embalming is described both by Herodotus and
Diodorus. The former, who is unquestionably the better
authority, says (book ii. sect. 85), “ This service is per¬
formed by persons appointed to exercise the art as their
business. When a dead body is brought to them, they show
their patterns of mummies in wood, imitated by sculp¬
ture; and the most elaborate of these they say belongs to
the character of one (Osiris), whose name I do not think
it pious to mention on such an occasion ; the second that
they show is less costly; the third, the cheapest of all:
and having shown these, they inquire in which way the
service shall be performed; upon which the parties make
their agreement, and the body is left for preparation.
The interior soft parts being removed both from the head
and from the trunk, the cavities are washed with palm
wine and fragrant gums, and partly filled up with myrrh
E M B
and cassia, and other spices; the whole is then steeped Embank
in a solution of soda for seventy days, which is the longest ment.
time permitted ; and then, having been washed, the body
is rolled up with bandages of cotton cloth, being first
smeared with gum instead of glue. The relations then,
receiving the body, procure a wooden case for it in a hu¬
man shape, and inclose the dead body in it; and when
thus inclosed, they treasure it up in an appropriate build¬
ing or apartment, placing it upright against the wall. And
this is the most expensive mode of preparation. For those
who prefer the middle class, in order to avoid expense,
the process is simplified by omitting the actual removal of
the interior parts, and introducing a corrosive liquid to
melt them down; the soda consumes the flesh, so that
skin and bone only are left when the body is returned to
the friends. The third and simplest process is merely to
cleanse the body well, within and without, by means of
some vegetable decoctions, and to keep it in the alkaline
solution for the seventy days, without farther precautions.”
Embalming appears also to have been performed by filling
the cavities of the thorax and abdomen, after the intes¬
tines were removed, with a species of pitch which was
poured into the trunk of the body in a liquid state, through
an aperture made on purpose in the right side, whilst the
head was treated in a similar manner. See the article
Mummy.
EMBANKMENT a mound or wall of earth, or other
materials, used as a defence against the inundations of
rivers, or the extraordinary flux of the sea.
The great value of alluvial soil to the agriculturist no
doubt gave rise to the invention of banks or other bar¬
riers, to protect such soils from the overflowing of their
accompanying rivers. The civilized nations of the high¬
est antiquity were chiefly inhabitants of valleys and allu¬
vial plains, the soil, moisture, and warmth of which, by
enlarging the parts, and ameliorating the fruits of the ve¬
getable kingdom, afforded to man better nourishment at
less labour than could be obtained in hilly districts. The
country of Paradise and around Babylon was flat, and the
soil a saponaceous clay, occasionally overflown by the Eu¬
phrates. The inhabited part of Egypt was also entirely
of this description. Historians inform us that embank¬
ments were first used by the Babylonians and Egyptians,
very little by the Greeks, and a good deal by the Romans,
who embanked the Tiber near Rome, and the Po for many
stadia from its embouchure. The latter is perhaps one of
the most singular cases of embankment in the world.
The oldest embankment in England is that of Romney
Marsh, as to the origin of which Dugdale remarks, “ that
there is no testimony left to us from any record or histo¬
rian.” (History of Embanking a7id Draining.) It is con¬
jectured to have been the work of the Romans, as well as
the banks on each side of the Thames for several miles
above London, which protect from floods and spring tides
several thousand acres of the richest garden ground in
the neighbourhood of the metropolis.
The commencement of modern embankments in Eng¬
land took place about the middle of the seventeenth cen¬
tury, under Cromwell. In the space of a few years previous¬
ly to 1651, about 425,000 acres of fens, morasses, or over¬
flown muddy lands, were recovered in Lincolnshire, Cam¬
bridgeshire, Hampshire, and Kent, and let at from 2s. 6d.
to 30s. an acre. (Plarte’s Essays, p. 54, 2d edit.) Ver-
muyden, a Fleming by birth, and a colonel of horse under
Cromwell, who had served in Germany during the thirty
years’ war, was the principal undertaker of these works.
The works of this sort constructed in our own times will
be found described in the Agricultural Reports of the
maritime counties, especially of Lincolnshire, by Arthur
Young.