Another type of natural mummification also occurred in northwestern Europe where bodies have been preserved when buried in peat bogs or fens containing lime. These processes have produced mummies not only in Egypt, but in South America, Mexico, the Alps, Central Asia, the Canary Islands, the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. Mummification of bodies was originally a natural process in Egypt and elsewhere, where the dryness of the sand in which the body was buried, the heat or coldness of the climate, or the absence of air in the burial helped to produce unintentional or "natural" mummies. The term mumia, or "mummy" was therefore extended to these bodies and has continued in use up until our present day. Hence, during the medieval and later times, they were used as medicinal ingredient. There was such a demand for this substance that an alternative source was eventually sought and, because the ancient Egyptian mummies often have a blackened appearance, they were believed to possess similar properties to munia. It originally referred to a black, asphalt-like substance, thought to have medicinal properties and eagerly sought as a cure for many ailments, that oozed from the "Mummy Mountain" in Persia. The word is derived from the Persian or Arabic word mumia (or mumiya), which means "pitch" or "bitumen". Mummies is a term that today is used to describe natural or artificially preserved bodies, though traditionally the word was used specifically to describe the bodies of ancient Egyptians where dehydration of the tissues was used to prevent putrefaction.
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