Man dedicates body for mummification

By QMI Agency

A British man has donated his body to be mummified, and the process will be shown in a television documentary.

Alan Billis, of Devon, is thought to be the first man in 3,000 years to be preserved in the style of ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

The 61-year-old former taxi driver was terminally ill with lung cancer when he read about the project and volunteered for the procedure, with the full support of his family, said a news release about the documentary.

"People have been leaving their bodies to science for years, and if people don't volunteer for anything nothing gets found out," Billis said.

Scientist Stephen Buckley, of Britain's York University, has spent 19 years studying mummified bodies in an effort to replicate the process, according to the release.

After Billis died in January, Buckley and archaeologist Jo Fletcher spent three months mummifying him in the traditional ancient Egyptian way. His body was coated with protective oils and placed in a salt bath. Then some of his internal organs were removed and his body was wrapped with linen bandages.

Billis' wife Jan is happy with the process.

"I'm the only woman in the country who's got a mummy for a husband," she said in the release. "I wonder what he's doing now, laying there."

The show, Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret, will air on Britain's Channel 4 next week.

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