<P> An attempt to find the mummies of the Inca emperors beneath the San Andres hospital in 2001 was unsuccessful . The archaeologists found a crypt, but it was empty . Possibly the mummies had been removed when the building was repaired after an earthquake . </P> <P> Monks whose bodies remain incorrupt without any traces of deliberate mummification are venerated by some Buddhists who believe they successfully were able to mortify their flesh to death . Self - mummification was practiced until the late 1800s in Japan and has been outlawed since the early 1900s . </P> <P> Many Mahayana Buddhist monks were reported to know their time of death and left their last testaments and their students accordingly buried them sitting in lotus position, put into a vessel with drying agents (such as wood, paper, or lime) and surrounded by bricks, to be exhumed later, usually after three years . The preserved bodies would then be decorated with paint and adorned with gold . </P> <P> Bodies purported to be those of self - mummified monks are exhibited in several Japanese shrines, and it has been claimed that the monks, prior to their death, stuck to a sparse diet made up of salt, nuts, seeds, roots, pine bark, and urushi tea . </P>

Who was the first person to be mummified in ancient egypt