ONTARIO, CANADA—Andrew Wade and Andrew Nelson of the University of Western Ontario have studied radiological scans of 84 Egyptian mummies from museums around the world. They found that mummification practices varied widely over different times and places. The researchers also compared what they found with the accounts left by the Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote about the embalming process in 440 B.C. “Herodotus got some things right and some things wrong, but we are lucky we have his accounts at all. The mummification craft was kept within families controlled by guilds that kept hold of secrets, so we should appreciate any insight from those times that we can find,” Wade said.