The beliefs and daily practices surrounding death and burial in ancient Egypt were elaborate but meaningful, as they stemmed from the religious and spiritual beliefs of the people. Many of the beliefs and practices, including burial ceremonies, bridged the real world to the afterlife. Some of the bodily preservation and burial methods were so advanced that today bodies of....
For ancient Egyptians, a tomb was a chamber for housing a dead body and storing treasures and supplies needed for the afterlife. Once these tombs were sealed, it was believed they would never be opened again. The type of tomb in which a person would be buried depended on his social class. All tombs had subterranean burial chambers but the wealthier deceased often had........
In the earliest times, the Egyptians buried their dead directly in the ground. Since Egypt's climate was, and still is, a very arid environment, a body may have been very well preserved if it was buried in a particularly sandy or dry spot. Often the bodies would have been buried curled up in a fetal position and interred with a few simple pots or other goods.
Egyptian funerary rituals took place to honor the deceased and to send his soul into the afterlife. According to ancient Greek historian Herodotus, some Egyptian burials were very dramatic when it came to mourning the dead, despite the fact that the ceremony was to celebrate the deceased person's finding happiness and fulfillment in the afterlife.
Mummification was an embalming treatment involving a unique process. All the moisture was removed from the body to help ward off decay and to keep the body as lifelike as possible, which was important to Egyptian religion. Mummification was so complex, it took 70 days and was carried out by specially trained priests. These priests had an advanced...
knowledge of the human body and knew all the prayers and rituals to be performed at the various stages of the process. The brain was removed through the nose with a hook and kept in a jar. Other organs, such as the lungs, liver, intestines and stomach, were placed in canopic jars and buried with the mummy. But the heart was left in place, as it was believed to be the....