Ancient Egyptian funerary practices

Ancient Egyptian funerary practices consisted of a variety of preparatory rituals, magic spells, and burial methods meant to ensure that the deceased achieved immortality in the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians were a very religious people who believed that life and death were both part of the same eternal journey. For a person to successfully reach the afterlife, his or her physical body must remain intact in its earthly resting place. For this reason, great care was taken to preserve the body and ensure that the proper rituals were performed. Egyptians’ funerary rites were performed for both common and royal burials, although the scope of royal burials was obviously far grander.

Background

Archeologists have found evidence of agricultural societies in the region of Egypt dating back to about 8000 BCE, but a unified Egyptian civilization did not arise until about 3150 BCE. At that time, an Upper Egyptian king named Menes conquered Lower Egypt and united the two regions. This began a period of more than three thousand years of dynastic rule in Egypt.

The history of ancient Egypt is divided into several periods, the first of which, the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150–2686 BCE), is noted for the consolidation of the two kingdoms and the first-known use of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE) was a time of prosperity when Egypt’s kings built large pyramids as burial sites to serve as reminders of their greatness during life. After the Old Kingdom’s collapse, Egypt went through a period of civil strife known the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BCE).

Egypt was once again united about 2055 BCE, beginning another period of prosperity known as the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1786 BCE). During this time, Egypt began to establish colonies and trade with other regions. The end of the Middle Kingdom was marked by another period of instability called the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1786–1567 BCE). During this time, Egypt was conquered by a foreign power known as the Hyksos. When the Hyksos were driven from Egypt, the region was again unified, marking the beginning of the New Kingdom (c. 1567–1085 BCE). It was during this time that Egypt reached its peak, establishing itself as the most powerful empire in the world.

The empire began to decline near the end of the period with the central government eventually collapsing about 1085 BCE, ushering in the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1085–664 BCE). Egypt was reunited about 664 BCE, beginning a brief period of prosperity known as the Late Period (c. 664–332 BCE). In 525 BCE, Egypt was conquered by the Persians and, apart from a period in the late fourth century BCE, remained under Persian control until it was seized by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. From that point until 30 BCE, Egypt was ruled by a series of Macedonian kings. In 30 BCE, it became part of the Roman Empire, ending Egypt’s dynastic line.

Overview

Religion was central to life in ancient Egypt, as was the belief that the life that a person led on Earth continued after they died. The Egyptian afterlife was not a type of mystical “heaven,” but rather an eternal form of daily life known as the Field of Reeds. Life in this Field of Reeds was an idealized mirror image of the life a person led on Earth. Everything a person had during life could be available to him or her in the afterlife if the objects were preserved and interred along with the deceased.

According to Egyptian beliefs, a person’s soul was divided into nine parts. Among these were the khat, a person’s physical body; the ka, a spiritual “double” of the person; the ba, a spiritual entity in the form of a human-headed bird that could travel between the worlds of the living and the dead; the akh, the immortal aspect of the soul that allowed it to live on; and the ab, or heart, the source of a person’s good or evil. The other aspects of the soul were the shuyet, or shadow self; the sahu and sechem, which were parts of the akh; and the ren, a person’s secret name.

After burial, the souls of the departed would awaken in the tombs, where they would be left instructions on how to complete journey to the afterlife. Eventually, they would reach the Hall of Truth where they would be judged by the goddess Ma’at, who would weigh the person’s ab, or heart, against a feather. If the heart was found to be heavier than the feather, Ma’at would drop the heart onto the floor, where it would be eaten by the monster Ammut. If this happened, a person ceased to exist and would never attain immortality. If the heart was lighter than the feather, the person would continue to the Field of Reeds. However, even if people lived a good life, and their heart was found to be lighter than a feather, they would not be able to reach the afterlife if their physical body was not prepared properly.

The Egyptians believed that the body needed to be properly preserved so that the ka and ba would recognize it after death. To do this, they used the process of mummification, an embalming and drying process meant to preserve a dead body. Mummification was used throughout Egyptian history, although the process varied depending on the social status of the individual.

The mummification process lasted about seventy days. Among royalty and the nobility, the internal organs of the deceased were removed to slow the body’s decay. The brain was removed first followed by the organs of the chest and abdomen—with the exception of the heart, which was left intact because it contained the ab. The organs were preserved in boxes or jars and buried with the body. Later in Egyptian history, the organs were specially treated and placed back inside the body. For burials of lesser status, the organs may not have been removed, but instead, the body may have been filled with a solution that dissolved the organs and then cured them in a drying salt known as natron.

Natron was used in all mummifications to dry out the body in preparation for being wrapped in linen. Special amulets were included among the wrappings, and magical words were written on some of the linens for protection. At certain points, the body was coated with a warm resin before the linen wrapping continued. While elaborate mummifications were usually reserved for royalty and the wealthy, common people also underwent some form of the process, with used clothing often used in place of fresh linen.

The body was carried to the tomb in a ritual procession, which was seen as a rite of passage on the journey to the afterlife. These processions also varied with the importance of the deceased. For example, pharaohs or other nobility were placed on boats and journeyed on the Nile River to their tombs. Average people were carried to their resting places on a sled pulled by oxen or other cattle. The dead were accompanied by mourners, which included female mourners who were paid to cry and wail during the proceedings. Among these mourners were two women who represented the goddesses Isis and Nephthys as they wept for their brother Osiris, who, according to myth, was murdered and restored to life.

Before the body was placed in the tomb, a priest performed the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, an important ritual meant as a final preparation for the afterlife. The priest used a sacred stone blade to touch the mouth, arms, legs, and other parts of the body. This was to ensure that the person was able to move about and speak when the soul was ready to continue its journey. After the ceremony, the body was placed in a coffin and sealed inside the burial chamber.

The deceased were buried with provisions and grave goods that were believed to be needed for the next step of its journey. These goods could include a person’s worldly possessions as well as offerings of food and drink to sustain the body in the afterlife. Writing material, tools, clothing, wigs, and other such everyday items were also interred with the deceased. Often, smaller models of the needed items would be buried in the tomb because it was believed that the models would magically be transformed to full size when needed.

During the Old Kingdom, kings and queens were provided with instructions meant to help them along their journey. These instructions were in the form of hieroglyphics written on the walls of their burial chamber. Known as the Pyramid Texts, the instructions continued to be part of royal burials until the First Intermediate Period. Later in this period and into the early decades of the Middle Kingdom, instructions were written on and in the coffins of royalty and commoner alike. The Coffin Texts, as they were called, included more than 1,100 spells and writings meant to help the deceased find their way through the afterlife. Among these writings were maps of the afterlife that pointed out ways to avoid danger.

During the New Kingdom, the Coffin Texts were replaced by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a manual of protective and guiding spells personalized for each individual user. The Egyptians believed that the deceased would encounter numerous tests and dangers on the journey to reach the Field of Reeds. The Book of the Dead told a person the path to take, how to answer the questions of the gods, what words to use to pass certain tests, and how to act along the way. The book included spells on how to avoid being eaten by crocodiles or snakes and transform into a falcon or phoenix. In the later years of the Egyptian empire, the book was replaced by other texts, including the Book of Breathing, the Book of Traversing Eternity, and the Book of the Ba.

Early Egyptian tombs were simple graves that were dug into the earth. Before the unification of Egypt and in the Early Dynastic Period, the tombs of kings and the wealthy evolved into square, flat-roofed stone structures known as mastabas. At the start of the Old Kingdom, Imhotep, the architect of King Djoser, built the first pyramid, placing slightly smaller mastabas on top of one another to create a step-like structure. The Step Pyramid at Saqqara was completed about 2670–2650 BCE and was used as Djoser’s tomb when he died.

During the Old Kingdom, mastabas were also used as tombs for some commoners, while many poor were simply buried in the desert. The kings began to build more elaborate pyramids as their eternal resting places. The first triangular, steep-sided pyramid was constructed as the tomb of King Sneferu about 2589 BCE. The height of Egyptian pyramid building took place under Sneferu’s son, King Khufu, who had the Great Pyramid of Giza constructed about 2566 BCE. At 479-feet (146-meters) high, the Great Pyramid was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for more than three thousand years. Other pyramids in the complex were built for his son Khafre, and grandson Menkaure.

Because the deceased were expected to maintain the station they enjoyed in life while in the afterlife, a king was buried with great riches and surrounded with statues or paintings of servants who would be there to assist him on his journey. Egypt’s kings continued to use pyramids as tombs through the end of the Old Kingdom, although the size of the structures began to decrease over time. Pyramid-building resumed briefly during the Middle Kingdom, but none was on the same scale as the structures of the Old Kingdom.

During the Middle Kingdom, the nobility and some royalty began to be buried in rock-cut tombs carved from hillsides or cliff faces. New Kingdom pharaohs and other royals were buried in a complex of rock-cut tombs known as the Valley of the Kings in southern Egypt. Archaeologists have discovered sixty-three tombs at the site. The most famous tomb discovered there was that of King Tutankhamun who died in 1323 BCE. His burial place was found mostly intact in 1922.

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