It was startling. More than 5,000 years ago, after burying their dead, the ancient Egyptians learned that the burning desert sands desiccated corpses. Instead of turning to dust, the skin shriveled up and clung to the bones. Mummification&emdash;the practice of dressing for success, eternal success&emdash;had begun.	Click image to enlarge.	And since they didn’t want to spend eternity looking rotten, those who could afford to had their bodies painstakingly embalmed. Embalming, as practiced in ancient Egypt, was a lost art, until Bob Brier decided to learn by doing. He and a team of experts retraced the steps of the Egyptian masters.