what was the purpose of natron in the mummification process

One can still buy chunks of the gray crystalline stuff in the suqs of Cairo. Natron is a naturally-occurring mixture of baking soda and salt that absorbs moisture and fat. There are stories of the body being dried on a bed of animal heads before it is wrapped in linen. Sometimes the tree resin of conifers was used. Without water bacteria can not cause decay. The natron drew water out of the body and preserves it as if it were dried fish. The body was covered in natron several days to prevent the body from decaying. This is not because hair keeps growing after a person dies as some have said but because dehydration of the body after death can cause retraction of the skin around hair and nails, giving the illusion that they have grown.

Beeswax was sometimes pored in the brain cavity. Sometimes the body was filled with sawdust, linen, and as well as the aromatic spices that Herodotus mentioned. The heart was left in place after the internal organs were removed. The intestines, liver and stomach were removed and placed in alabaster jars. Within two or three days after death all the hair was shaven off and the body was opened with special stone knives from Ethiopia. Then it is filled with pure crushed myrrh, cassia and all other aromatic substances, except frankincense.The incision is sewn up and then the body is placed in natron.” Then they clean out the body cavity, rinsing it first with palm wine and again with a solution of pounded spices. 'In the best treatment,' he wrote, 'first they draw out the brains through the nostrils with an iron hook, and what the hook cannot reach is dissolved with drugs.Next they make an incision in the flank with a sharp obsidian blade through which they can extract all internal organs. The Greek historian Herodotus said he witnessed the practice on a trip to Egypt in 484 B.C. Unfortunately for historians and archaeologists no record of how they did it has survived.

Embalming and mummification are believed to have been carried out by a caste or family and was passed down from generation to generation. Mummy of Sennedjem The embalming and mummy-making process took up to 70 days and was practiced well into the Roman period.

What was the purpose of natron in the mummification process