Ancient techniques for preserving entire or parts of animals and humans were secret arts, frequently associated with religious ceremonies and mystical rites. Protecting the dead from decay was variously understood as a means of easing the transition of the spirit between this world and the next, harnessing supernatural forces, or accessing knowledge of the natural and supernatural worlds. Preserved body parts were links to the after world and were appropriately revered as symbols of strength and worldly representations of unworldly powers. In an effort to ensure abundant harvests, the Maori sometimes placed the skull, bones, and dried heads of ancestors around cultivated lands to recruit symbolically ancestral aid. Some North American First Nations peoples were known to use the preserved heads of porcupines, foxes, raccoons, and eagles to decorate their clothing and equipment. In the Ecuadorian and neighboring Peruvian Amazon, members of the Jivaro Tribe wore the shrunken head, or tsanta, of their enemy as trophies to harness the powers of the victim's spirit and to enhance the wearer's prestige and. If the head of a slain warrior was not obtainable, the Jivaro substituted the head of a tree sloth, which many of the tribes in the region believed to be a direct ancestor of humans and endowed with human qualities.

Image: the Cathedral of Seville, taken from Ramon Jackson's
website: A Crocodile, Elephant Tusk and La Giralda

The Western Christian tradition also revered relics of the deceased. Bodily fragments of saints displayed in early Christian churches were venerated by pilgrims for their power to heal and alleviate suffering and physical pain.  Medieval Christian also frequently hung preserved exotic items from the rafters of churches to evoke awe at the wondrous variety of God’s creations. In 1260 a crocodile was given to King Alfonso X by the Sultan of Egypt. When the animal died, its body was dried and hung in the Portal of the Lizard (named for the reptile) which leads from the cloister to the Cathedral of Seville. The crocodile eventually decayed, however, and was replaced by a wooden replica.

 

Image: from the National Library of Medicine's online gallery,
Dream Anatomy

Even early natural history collections, the precursors to modern day scientific institutions, had religious overtones. Nature was God’s creation, and as such reading the book of Nature was a means of knowing His works and ways. Collections of body parts were used a moral exemplum. Fredrick Ruysch (1638-1731), for example, sculpted pieces of human bodies – kidney stones, gallstones, dried organs – as landscapes on which tiny skeletons enacted various emotional scenes of piety, despair, and tribulation.

 

The ancient Egyptians developed perhaps the most sophisticated methods of bodily preservation, which was used on humans and well as animals. Cats, dogs, bulls, mice, hawks, ibises, crocodiles, and other pets of rulers or sacred animals were also carefully preserved and entombed. After removing the internal organs, the body was washed inside and out with astringent palm wine and then filled with pounded aromatics such as myrrh, cassia, and cinnamon. The body was then kept covered in natron, a type of salt mined from dry lake beds near the Nile River which accelerated the dehydration of the body. After a period of several months, the body was washed again and wrapped with bands of fine linen smeared on their inside with gum, which the Egyptians used instead of glue. Essentially, mummification prevents decay by allowing the body to slowly release moisture; the skin and muscles become rigid and the tissues shrink, adhering to the skeleton.


Image: a nineteenth-century dehydrated crocodile head
taken from Finch & Company, online dealers in curiosities.Although mummification was capable of preserving the features of the deceased with amazing accuracy, since the technique involved drying bodies rather than removing and stuffing the skin, mummification cannot properly be considered taxidermy. However, the methods of preventing decay with spices, salts, and fragrant substances were later used by taxidermists.  For this reason, it is not surprising that some of the earliest taxidermy was prepared by apothecaries (an early word for pharmacists), who had knowledge of secret herbal formulae and access to all variety of spices and preservatives as well as the curious creatures worthy of preservation that merchants were returning with from distant lands.

The spice trade in early modern Europe was a highly profitable business: nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves commanded exorbitant prices, and taxidermic methods benefited from the trade. Although spices were more financially lucrative, shrewd merchants would also return home with exotic specimens, which were eagerly purchased by inquisitive and curious naturalists and apothecaries, who frequently used dried animal parts including pieces of mummies in their preparations.

Etchings of early apothecary collections such as those of Ferrante Imperato and Francesco Calzolari show how a wide variety of zoological specimens which would have required some means or preservation.  Most likely they were preserved either by rubbing the skins with various spices and salt, and then stuffed with straw or soft material or were embalming by a drying process similar to mummification and then varnished.  Whether stuffed or dried and varnished, it is highly unlikely that birds, animals, and especially the fish, frogs, and lizards hanging from the ceiling would have appeared as fresh and free from decay as the images would seem to suggest.

Above is a hollow-eyed, wizened example of preservation techniques that leave much to the imagination. The fish is actually from the nineteenth century, but similar examples surely could be found from an earlier date, that is, if they still existed. The label reads:  'Flying Fish - The common flying fish is a marine species of gregarious habit and remarkable in being able to take a skimming flight, from which it derives its name. The ordinary length of a flying fish is from ten inches to a foot, its chief characteristics are the great length of the pectoral fins and blunt head. It is quite certain that these fish take their flights to escape their enemies. It must be clearly understood that the flight is not prolonged by any flapping of the fins, its continuance being entirely due to the original impetus of the leap." Image taken from: Finch & Co. self-described as two eccentric collectors dedicated to create the greatest of 21st Century cabinets of curiosities at the antique shows they participate in. The fish was still available for sale as of November 2006.

The earliest taxidermic specimens include a rhinoceros in the Royal Museum of Vertebrates in Florence, Italy about 1500 and a preserved aviary of exotic birds from the West Indies owned by a wealthy Hollander, also dated to the early sixteenth century.   As legend has it, the birds suffocated during the voyage home, and the owner, determined to reap some advantage from the mishap, had the skins preserved with spices also brought from the Indies. Neither have survived the ravages of insects over the intervening years.  Among the oldest surviving pieces of taxidermy include a crocodile prepared in 1623 still on display at the museum at St. Gallen, Switzerland, and the Duchess of Richmond's African Grey parrot, which can be seen in Westminster Abbey, London.

Although the earliest known pieces of taxidermy date from the beginning of the sixteenth century, the development and perfection of taxidermic techniques are intimately linked to Western Europe’s fascination with the natural world through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  From the late seventeenth century onwards, the improvement of taxidermic practices is inseparable from the scientific investigation of the natural world.

What began as an essential practice for naturalists in their investigations of nature, became in the nineteenth century nothing sort of a fashion craze: in Europe, Britain, and North America the general public quite literally fell in love with nature whether it was alive or dead.  Far from being a quaint hobby, the nineteenth-century passion for natural history changed the way people understood and interacted with nature. The love of nature was only increased with knowledge of its many and various parts and was therefore not incompatible with shooting, skinning, and displaying animals in museums, parlour, and even on hats.