18-10-11, 07:41 PM
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Taxi driver becomes first person to be mummified for 3,000 years
Taxi driver becomes first person to be mummified for 3,000 years - Telegraph
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Alan Billis, who had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, applied to take part in the controversial Channel 4 show after seeing an advert in a newspaper.
When he died in January, he became the first person to be mummified for 3,000 years, thanks to a pioneering scientist who had spent two decades trying to work out how to replicate the secret techniques of the ancient Egyptian embalmers.
Mr Billis, 61, from Torquay, told the documentary team: “People have been leaving their bodies to science for years and if people don't volunteer for anything nothing gets found out.
"Experimenting is all about trying different processes to make things work. If it doesn't work it's not the end of the world, is it? Don't make any difference to me, I'm not going to feel it."
He said his only regret was that he would not be around to see the programme, although he hoped it would give his grandchildren an insight into his personality.
"They'll most probably tell somebody at school that my grandad's a Pharaoh,” he added. “That's my legacy I suppose.”
Mr Billis’s widow, Jan, 68, who backed her husband’s decision, said: “I’m the only woman in the country who’s got a mummy for a husband.”
Stephen Buckley, an archaeological chemist, said the result had left him confident he had cracked the code to one of the last great secrets of the pharaohs.
After completing the three-month process at the Sheffield Medico-Legal Centre, he said: “I think he’s on the road to looking very much like the best of the best of the 18th Dynasty in 3,000 years’ time.”
:: Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret will be screened on Channel 4 on Monday October 24 at 9pm.
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