Ceres

That's actually kinda true. In ancient Egypt, bodies used to be buried in the sandy ground. Sand plus the dry heat preserved the bodies. It was only when they started having an "upper class", who decided they shouldn't be just slung into the dirt with commoners, started building above ground tombs and such. BUT they started to decompose, and therefore couldn't continue onto the afterlife, because they weren't getting desiccated by the sands! And so mummification be...