Preview

What Was The Importance Of Mummification In Ancient Egypt

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
291 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Was The Importance Of Mummification In Ancient Egypt
The Ancient Egyptians believed that when a pharaoh died he became “Osiris”, the king of the dead. They believed that for the dead pharaoh to carry out his duties as king of the dead his “ka” (soul or spirit) which remained with the body, had to be looked after.
In order for the “ka” to survive, the dead pharaoh’s body was mummified and buried with all the things it would need for the afterlife. A method of artificial preservation, called mummification was developed by the ancient Egyptians. Mummification was a complicated and lengthy process which lasted up to 70 days.
Pharaoh’s continued to be buried in pyramids until the end of the Middle Kingdom 1650BC when they began to be buried in tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

Anubis was the god

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Ancient Egypt, a magnificent civilization, but just how did they treat their dead kings? This essay will explain what and why pharaohs became mummified, and how they did.…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Egyptians had far more advanced medical techniques than people had in Prehistoric times. The main reason for this is their religion. They believed in life after death, therefore they felt it was very important to treat the corpses with a lot of care. They were prepared for the afterlife. This meant the Egyptians gained a lot of knowledge about anatomy. The process they went through to preserve the bodies is called embalming. It was noticed that the organs in the body would not remain preserved so they removed them before the burial. They were placed into canopic jars, then the body was treated with salts. These salts and the desert air dried out the bodies and later they would be wrapped in hundreds of yards of linen. After 70 days, the embalming process was complete and the mummy would be placed inside a specially made coffin with things that made them comfortable in life.…

    • 377 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Egyptian religion was polytheistic which meant that they believed in more than one god. They also thought how you acted in your life on earth will affect you in the after life. This is why many rulers were buried with a lot of their gold and precious items. Some of the kings and queens had servants killed and buried with them so they would be able to service them in the after…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    King Djoser’s Step Pyramid, Pyramid of Amenemhet II, and Valley of the Kings are all important monuments regarding burial of either royalties or both royalties and officials. These three monuments are from different time period and it is clear that ancient Egyptian tombs come in all sort of kinds. The tombs, artwork, and sculpture shows that the belief in the afterlife existed back then.…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mummification Report

    • 1779 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Mummification is an ancient Egyptian method which is a natural or deliberate process intended to dehydrate the body to preserve it. They done this because they believed that if a body was left to rot then it would destroy their soul, so they believed that the body needed to be intact to serve as host for the soul. So they preserved bodies so they could use them in the afterlife, where the Egyptians believed they would make a journey to another life. To start to mummify a body, the first step is to push a sharp rod up the nose and into the brain to break it into small enough pieces to be removed out through the nose. Next a hole is made in the body to remove all the organs apart from the heart and then they stored these organs in jars and filled the hole back up with linen and spices. After this, the body would then be left to dry by using a salt (natron) mixture called a mummion which absorbed all the moisture from the body to dry it out, and then it was wrapped up in linen bandages. Mummion is an inorganic solid that is obtained from dried up lake beds and it used to mummify the dead bodies.…

    • 1779 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Egyptians took great care of their dead because of their religious beliefs. According to John Catoir, author of “World Religions: Beliefs Behind Today's Headlines,” Egyptians believed that an afterlife involved a full human existence, not a mere spirit life, therefore the soul must join the body in heaven. It was hoped that by preserving their bodies from decay they would enhance the process of resurrection and provide themselves with a decent start in the new life. The priests who performed the mummification were thought of as acting in the role of Anubis, the god of the dead.…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Researchers believe that today there are only about 80 pyramids left from ancient Egypt. The pyramids were built as tombs for the Pharaohs and their queens. During their time on earth, it was believed that the Pharaohs were the link between the people and gods and when the Pharaohs died, they became gods. Since they expected to become gods in the afterlife, the Pharaohs had massive pyramid tombs built for them and filled them with all the things they would need in the afterlife.…

    • 1157 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The ancient Egyptians preserved the bodies of the dead. They believed that to live forever in the afterlife they had to preserve the body. At the time when the pyramids where being built they were still trying to find a good working way to preserve the dead bodies. The process that the ancient Egyptians came up with later is called embalming. They soak the body in salt for forty days to dry out the body.…

    • 285 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Egyptian Beliefs

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Egyptians believed that when a king died, his spiritual body returned to its original abode with the gods. The Egyptians felt it was their duty to worship the kings even after they left earth. By having festivals at the tombs, placing offerings of food in the grave of the dead to prevent them from returning, and praying for the welfare of the dead; they believed that their offerings helped the kings find their way to the gods above. “This happy result was partly by the performance of certain ceremonies which first wholly magical, but late, partly magical and partly religious” (3).…

    • 535 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Egyptians have practiced mummifying their dead for 3,000 years or more in the belief that the soul would reunite with the body in in the after life. Mostly only the royal and the richest people could be mummified, for the royal people needed to be remembered and the richest people had enough money for it. But the most poor people could not afford it.…

    • 64 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Mummification

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “During the Dynastic Period, there were three basic types of tombs evolved: mastabas, rock-cut tombs, and pyramids” (“Life in Ancient Egypt” 1). However, if you were more financial you were buried in Mastabas. A simple mud-brick tombs, Arabic word meaning bench. Until, family members noticed the bodies had rotten from not being in the dried up ground. Finally, which is when the mummification was developed. Mummification was a trial and error process before it became successful. Around the time of the pyramids, embalmers were beginning to remove internal organs except the heart.…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Early Pyramids Essay

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages

    At around 1800 B.C., Egyptian pyramid-building was stopped once and for all. Historians are still left wondering exactly why they stopped building pyramids, but there are some known facts about the end of pyramid-building. Once pharaohs stopped being buried in pyramids, they were buried in tombs cut from rock, typically on mountainside. Also, the grave robberies went down greatly, most likely due to the fact that the graves were no longer very easily accessible.…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Egyptian burial practices began in the old kingdom (2786 – 2181B.C.E) where as the ancient Egyptian believed in another life after dying. This started to become practiced throughout the culture of the Egyptians in the old kingdom. This became important for the Egyptians to be buried as to their standards. The burial had to be correct for the Egyptians because it meant to be born again in the next life for them. The economic class buried Egyptians, where as wealthy burials included more than what poor burials would be involved. For most Egyptians who were low or middle status would do their burials in the deserts. As for the process of the burial, the closest people to the dead would wrap their body in cloth and bury it with everyday necessities and food they would take over to the next life for them and the…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many Pharaohs dedicated much of their lives to the construction of their tombs, so they would live comfortably in the afterlife. “The largest pyramid covered 13 acres at it’s base, and was…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Alchin, L. (2009, January 16). Egyptian Afterlife. King Tut. Retrieved September 18, 2012, from http://www.king-tut.org.uk/egyptian-mummies/egyptian-afterlife.htm…

    • 1453 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays