Channel Four viewers will see Alan Billis turned into a mummy over the space of a few months as his body is preserved using the techniques which the ancient Egyptians used on Tutankhamun.
Billis had been terminally ill with cancer when he volunteered to undergo the procedure which a scientist has been working to recreate for many years. Billis died in January. The 61-year-old had the backing of his wife Jan, who said: “I’m the only woman in the country who’s got a mummy for a husband.”
The process is revealed in a new documentary Mummifying Alan: Egypt’s Last Secret.
Dr Stephen Buckley has spent 19 years trying to uncover the preservation techniques which the Egyptians used during the 18th dynasty.
Alongside archaeologist Dr Jo Fletcher, Dr Buckley has studied mummified bodies, analysing tissue samples and finally putting his findings into practice by putting them to the test on Mr Billis’s body.
Billis had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer when he heard about the search for a body donor.
“I was reading the paper and there was a piece that said ‘volunteer wanted with a terminal illness to donate their body to be mummified’.”
“People have been leaving their bodies to science for years and if people don’t volunteer for anything nothing gets found out.”
Billis — who dubbed himself “Tuten-Alan”— said: “Experimenting is all about trying different processes to make things work. If it doesn’t work it’s not the end of the world? Don’t make any difference to me, I’m not going to feel it. It’s still bloody interesting.”