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Mummification
Ceremony: Ceremony by 4 priests, one dressed as Anubis. The inner organs were removed and put in Canopic jars.
Natron: Linen cloth and natron were used as packing to replace the organs.
40 Days: The body was covered with natron and placed on a tilted slab. The natron remained on and in the body for at least 40 days to dry the body of fluids.
Makeup: Packing removed, incisions sewn, body rubbed with oils and resins, nostrils stuffed with wax, pads under eyes. Make up applied. First strips of linen wound around the body.
Decorate: Jewelry was used to decorate the body. Good luck charms, like ankhs, were tucked in the 20 layers. The ankh was the symbol for "life".
Mask: Face was covered with a mask so that the Ba and Ka could recognize the body. The mask was colored and was as lifelike as possible.
Then the Mummy was placed in a coffin or a series of coffins.
There was a procession by family and friends to the final resting place.
Mourners wailed an priests prayed at the tomb door.
The tomb door was locked and sealed.
The gods performed the weighing of the heart ceremony (hidden from human sight).
If the deceased (the mummy's) heart was light, and passed the test, he or she then boarded Ra's heavenly boat and sailed away to join Osiris in the shining land of Two Fields for eternity.
Mummies & the Afterlife
Ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife, a real and beautiful place, where they played and lived after they died. To enjoy your afterlife, you couldn't just die. You had to prepare. To achieve immortality, you had to satisfy some requirements.
Requirements:
(1) Your name had to be written down. You had to have your name written down somewhere, the more places the better. If it was not written down, you disappeared.(2) You had to pass the Weighing of the Heart. You had to pass the weighing of the heart test in the Hall of Maat. Your heart was weighed against the weigh of a magic feather. If your heart was light, because you had lived a good, hard working, caring life, the scale would balance, and you would go to heaven. If it did not, well, that was another story.(3) You had to have a preserved body. Another thing you needed to move on to the afterlife was a preserved body. One way to preserve the body of a person who had died was to dry them out and wrap them up with linen bandages. That process was called mummification.
You needed a preserved body so that your Ba and Ka, the two pieces of your soul, could find their way home at night back to your tomb. Without a body, the Ba and Ka would get lost. And they would no longer be able to reach the heavenly Land of Two Fields.
The poor placed the bodies of their dead relatives out in the desert sand. The bodies dried naturally in the sun. That was a perfectly good system. It assured the dead a place in the afterlife (provided their heart was light from doing lots of good deeds while they were alive, and their name was written down somewhere.) If they had a light heart, they would pass through the field of reeds and reach their afterlife. (The field of reeds is what the ancient Egyptians called death.)
The rich could afford to be more fussy. They hired professional mummy makers, to help them look their very best.
Click the image:
Canopic Jars
After you died, your body was preserved in a special way. Preserving your body was an important job in ancient Egypt. Part of the process was to remove your internal organs. Your organs were carefully stored in Canopic jars.
There were four jars. Each jar represented one of the four sons of the Egyptian god Horus, so that they could watch over you.
This was one more step in the path to your afterlife.
The Afterlife
To the ancient Egyptians, the Land of Two Fields was a real place. It was a heavenly place. It was the place you went after you died. One of the reasons the god Osiris was so honored in ancient Egypt is because it was Osiris who opened the door to the afterlife for everyone.
It took more than dying to enter the Land of Two Fields. You had to earn your way into your afterlife by doing good deeds while you were alive. The more good deeds you did, the lighter your heart became. If your heart was not light, you could not board Ra's board and sail away into your Afterlife. To avoid any chance of trickery, the goddess Maat weighed your heart after you died. If your heart was not light enough, you were stuck in your tomb forever. But once you were in, you were in. You only had to sail away in Ra's boat once. After that, you had a free pass, and your soul could come and go. There was not a lot of crime in ancient Egypt. Everyone wanted their heart to be light.
There were two other requirements you had to satisfy before you could enter the Land of Two Fields. Not only did your heart have to be light, you also had to have your name written down somewhere, and you had to have a preserved body. That's because the ancient Egyptians believed in a soul. They believed your soul split into two parts after you died. One part, the Ba, flew off every morning to keep watch over your living family. The other part, the Ka, flew off every morning to the Land of Two Fields, to enjoy your Afterlife. Both the Ba and the Ka returned each night to your tomb, so you could get some sleep. In the morning, the cycle started again.
If something happened to your preserved body, or if your name was not written down somewhere, the Ba and Ka would get lost on their way home. You would disappear. You would never again be able to watch over your family, or be able to enjoy your afterlife.
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