The Ancient Egyptian Afterlife Beliefs

The Ancient Egyptians believed that life on Earth was the first stage of the journey into the afterlife. Death was a transition that could lead to eternal happiness and rebirth. Their beliefs about life and death were based on religious texts. To successfully reach the afterlife, a person must have led a moral life that strictly adhered to the Egyptian religion. They also had to believe in the underworld, eternal life, and the rebirth of the soul.

The journey into the afterlife was not easy. It was perilous and not everyone completed the attempt. To meet the Great Death along the way meant that the person’s soul no longer existed and could not be reborn.

The living had a duty to carry out the required funeral traditions that would prepare the deceased for the journey and increase the odds of reaching the afterlife. They funerary practices they followed were described in the Book of the Dead, an ancient text written in the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BCE) by many generations of priests. The Book of the Dead contains two hundred chapters and took about one thousand years to complete. It was written on papyrus and copied many times.

Background

The Ancient Egyptians considered the soul to be an entity separate from the body. The soul could leave the body after the person’s death. However, whether the soul made it to the afterlife and could be reborn again depended on how the person lived their life. It also depended on whether the necessary funeral practices were carried out by the living. They included mummification, the creation of a casket and a burial tomb, and the inclusion of everything the deceased might need in the afterlife in the burial tomb such as food, drinks, and weapons.

Mummification

Mummifying a body was a complicated process that took about seventy days to complete. To keep the deceased safe, a priest stayed with the body throughout the mummification process and prayed to Anubis, the god of embalming. First, the brain was removed through the person’s nose and discarded. Next, the innards were removed. The heart, lungs, stomach, liver, and intestines were kept. The heart was cleaned and wrapped in cloth and put back into the body. The Ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was used later during a test to determine if the deceased was permitted to journey toward the afterlife.

The dead individual’s body was then filled with bags of natron, which is like salt. Natron was also used to preserve the lungs, stomach, liver, and intestines. These organs were placed in canopic jars, which were believed to protect them from evil spirits. The body was then covered in natron and left untouched for forty days. The natron dried it out and changed its color to black.

After forty days, the Ancient Egyptians took the bags of natron out of the body and filled the body with cloth and grasses to keep it from collapsing. The skin was covered in resin, a substance made from tree sap, to keep it from decaying and make it waterproof. The body was wrapped in linen bandages, which were also covered in resin. Wrapping the body took about fifteen days. Small pieces of jewelry called amulets containing prayers and spells were kept with the body to protect the deceased on their journey to the afterlife. The most important amulet was the heart scarab, which ensured the heart’s silence when it was later being weighed during a test so it would not bear false witness against the deceased.

Mummification was time-consuming and expensive. However, all Ancient Egyptian bodies were mummified, regardless of the deceased’s wealth. A proper burial ensured that they would not return as ghosts to haunt those who did not follow the required funeral practices. The poor helped with the expense of mummification by giving their clothing to embalmers to be used to mummify their loved ones.

Coffin

Early in Ancient Egyptian history during the Old Kingdom (c. 2649–2130 BCE), the deceased’s coffin was constructed while their body was being mummified. It was a simple wooden structure with three openings—one for the soul, called the Ka, to pass through, and two representing the eyes.

By the New Kingdom, coffins had become more elaborate, especially if the deceased was an important person. While coffins for wealthy people were also wooden, they were human-shaped and placed inside a larger wooden or stone box called a sarcophagus, which was decorated to resemble the deceased. King Tut, the famous boy king, was buried in a sarcophagus with three nested coffins inside, the innermost made of solid gold.

Tomb

A sarcophagus or coffin was placed in a burial tomb, which varied in size depending on a person’s social class and the time during which they were buried. Tombs in early Egypt and those for the poor were simple graves dug into the earth. However, eventually tombs became more ornate and were built with mud bricks.

The Pyramids of Giza were gigantic stone burial tombs built during the Old Kingdom from approximately 2550 BCE to 2490 BCE. The three enormous structures were created for Pharaoh Khufu, his son, Pharaoh Khafre, and grandson Pharaoh Menkaure.

Most burial tombs, including the pyramids, were built, or at least designed, while the person was alive. It could take the Ancient Egyptians many years to construct a tomb. However, those built above ground were often broken into and looted in the centuries after the person’s death. Because of this, the Ancient Egyptians began building burial tombs underground, which made them more difficult to find. King Tut’s four-room burial tomb was underground in an area known as the Valley of the Kings.

The items the Ancient Egyptians included in a tomb depended on the deceased’s wealth. A rich king or queen might have a large tomb filled with items made of gold. A commoner, on the other hand, might be buried with whatever items their family could spare.

Most often, the Ancient Egyptians buried their dead with whatever they thought they would need on their journey to the next world. Because the journey was dangerous, burial tombs often included weapons. They also included food and drinks, funerary texts, jewelry, and, in some cases, artwork and furniture. Six chariots were discovered in King Tut’s tomb.

Ancient Egyptians, regardless of their wealth and social status, wanted to be buried with shabti dolls. These dolls served as replacement workers in the next world when the deceased were called upon to work. A wealthy person was often buried with many shabti dolls.

Overview

According to the Ancient Egyptians, the deceased faced great danger when traveling through the underworld, also called the Duat. It was the first phase in the journey to the afterlife. The deceased might encounter five-headed reptiles and fire-breathing dragons. Deceased persons traveling through the underworld were accompanied by the god Anubis, who looked like a man with the head of a jackal.

Once the deceased successfully passed through the underworld, they arrived at the Hall of Truth, also called the Hall of Osiris. The god Osiris was a dead king who had been brought back to life after being murdered by his brother, Seth.

Once in the Hall of Truth, the deceased made the Negative Confessions in front of Osiris, other gods, and forty-two judges. The Negative Confessions were forty-two sins that the deceased should not have committed during their life. When reciting the Negative Confessions, the deceased made statements like “I have not stolen. I have not lied.”

After this, the deceased presented their heart to Osiris, who weighed it on the golden scale. Osiris put the heart on one side of the scale and the white feather of truth on the other. If the heart weighed less than the feather, the deceased was permitted to continue the journey. However, if the heart weighed more than the feather, it was thrown to the floor and eaten by Ammit, the devourer of the dead. This resulted in the Great Death, which meant the deceased no longer existed and could not be reborn.

If the deceased passed the heart test, they traveled along a path leading to Lily Lake, also called the Lake of Flowers. At the end of the path, the deceased met the Divine Ferryman, Hraf-hef, an offensive creature who made cruel remarks to deceased people, who had to be kind to him regardless of what he said. Those who managed to do this were permitted to continue the journey.

They deceased traveled across the lake to the Field of Reeds. There they were reunited with deceased loved ones and pets. They were also given their favorite possessions.

In some accounts of Ancient Egyptian afterlife, the soul of the deceased was reunited with its former body, which was been restored. In others, the deceased is reincarnated as another being, which could be a person but could also be a plant or an animal.

Bibliography

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