Once the body had been purified, it was taken to the wabet pure place or per nefer house of beauty , where the actual mummification began. The ancient Egyptians did not see the brain as the center of reason and identity, so they made no effort to preserve it.
A long hook was inserted up the nose into the cranium and swirled around to liquefy the brain, which would then be poured out into a bowl. Next, the internal organs were removed through an incision, usually made in the left-hand side of the abdomen. But the heart, believed to be the center of wisdom, was deliberately left in place. Spells 27, 28, and 29 in the collection of mortuary texts known now as the Book of the Dead state the importance of keeping this organ connected to the body. Dehydration was essential to the embalming process.
The material used was solid-state natron, a hydrated sodium carbonate often found near salt lakes. In an experiment performed on a corpse in , Egyptologist Bob Brier and Dr. Ronald Wade found that pounds of natron were needed to entirely cover and dry a body. Various oils and liquid resin were later rubbed into the flesh. This may have helped prevent or delay insect predation and mask the odors of decomposition.
Once mummification was complete, the deceased would be carried to his or her final resting place. A large procession set out from the home. The key trait of the mummy is its linen wrappings, often the last step of mummification. This final procedure was carried out with great solemnity, the wrappers taking many days to entirely envelop the body.
The amount of fabric used varied from one mummy to another and, in the case of less well-off clients, belonged to the deceased in their lifetimes.
Every single action was defined in minute detail and accompanied by the appropriate spell. Amulets of various kinds were placed inside the folds of the linen to provide greater protection, as well as papyri with magic spells.
If the deceased was a member of the elite, the mummy was covered with a mask and placed in a sumptuous casket, which was in turn placed inside a sarcophagus. In the early s, officials in Luxor suspected that mummies were being sold illegally, and following an investigation, they stumbled on a cache that shocked Egyptologists.
In , tipped off by a local dealer, the German archaeologist Emil Brugsch entered a cave set into a cliff face near Deir el Bahri.
The mummies were later taken to Cairo where they were unwrapped before onlookers by Brugsch and other Egyptologists.
The two great kings now rest in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. All rights reserved. Timeline: Well Preserved. Please be respectful of copyright.
Unauthorized use is prohibited. Chief embalmers often wore a mask of the god Anubis, depicted at work here in the New Kingdom tomb of Sennedjem at Deir el Medina. A Dummy Mummy. An Egyptian banquet in which servants present the model of a mummy to guests.
Edwin Longsden Long, Recipe for a Mummy. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Calcite ointment jar engraved with the name King Pepi I. Egyptian Museum, Berlin.
The Dead Go Home. A priest carrying out the ceremony of the Opening of the Mouth. The Cave of Stolen Mummies.
Members of the French Egyptology Society examine the mummy of a priest of Amun in After this, the tomb was closed for the person to come back to life. If the family was wealthy, they had a separate chapel next to the burial place, where they could visit and bring offerings.
There were two entities for the soul: Ka , the selfhood that receives the food and drinks, and Ba , the soul that left the body upon death. Ba visited the upper world during the day and went back to the body at night.
The mummification process in ancient Egypt was to save both the body and soul, so the afterlife would be pleasant to live. Ancient Egyptians believed the body would physically come back to life, and the soul would return to it to continue living in the underworld. The key to having a smooth reunification was the ancient Egyptian mummification process that tried to preserve all the important parts, including the intestines.
The natural mummies of Egypt were preserved in hot sand. However, in the mummification process , the Egyptians used natron powder to take out all the humidity in the body without darkening and hardening the skin. The final step was to wash and wrap the body in linen bandages. The mummification process in ancient Egypt was a vital but expensive one. All the dead were mummified, but the length of the process and the quality depended on how much the family of the dead could pay. King Tutankhamun or King Tut, a 30,year-old mummy, is the most famous mummy.
This Egyptian pharaoh died at a very young age, after a reign of almost 10 years. The mummification process common in ancient Egypt was also applied for this great pharaoh but the cause of death remains unknown. By Robert Garland P. It was a lengthy and costly process, which was not equally performed for everyone. Some even had to start the afterlife without their inner organs, which was not the most pleasant situation, but inevitable! What is a Mummy?
The Greek Story of the Egyptian Process The best source describing the Egyptian mummification process is the historical writings of Herodotus. To make the mummy seem even more life-like, sunken areas of the body were filled out with linen and other materials and false eyes were added. Next the wrapping began. Each mummy needed hundreds of yards of linen. The priests carefully wound the long strips of linen around the body, sometimes even wrapping each finger and toe separately before wrapping the entire hand or foot.
In order to protect the dead from mishap, amulets were placed among the wrappings and prayers and magical words written on some of the linen strips. Often the priests placed a mask of the person's face between the layers of head bandages. At several stages the form was coated with warm resin and the wrapping resumed once again. At last, the priests wrapped the final cloth or shroud in place and secured it with linen strips. The mummy was complete. The priests preparing the mummy were not the only ones busy during this time.
Although the tomb preparation usually had begun long before the person's actual death, now there was a deadline, and craftsmen, workers, and artists worked quickly. There was much to be placed in the tomb that a person would need in the Afterlife. Furniture and statuettes were readied; wall paintings of religious or daily scenes were prepared; and lists of food or prayers finished.
Through a magical process, these models, pictures, and lists would become the real thing when needed in the Afterlife. Everything was now ready for the funeral. As part of the funeral, priests performed special religious rites at the tomb's entrance. The most important part of the ceremony was called the "Opening of the Mouth. By touching the instrument to the mouth, the dead person could now speak and eat. He was now ready for his journey to the Afterlife. The mummy was placed in his coffin, or coffins, in the burial chamber and the entrance sealed up.
Such elaborate burial practices might suggest that the Egyptians were preoccupied with thoughts of death. On the contrary, they began early to make plans for their death because of their great love of life. They could think of no life better than the present, and they wanted to be sure it would continue after death. But why preserve the body? The Egyptians believed that the mummified body was the home for this soul or spirit.
If the body was destroyed, the spirit might be lost. The idea of "spirit" was complex involving really three spirits: the ka, ba, and akh. The ka, a "double" of the person, would remain in the tomb and needed the offerings and objects there. The ba, or "soul", was free to fly out of the tomb and return to it. And it was the akh, perhaps translated as "spirit", which had to travel through the Underworld to the Final Judgment and entrance to the Afterlife. To the Egyptian, all three were essential.
After death, the pharaohs of Egypt usually were mummified and buried in elaborate tombs.
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