Mummification
by: Erin Martin

    Mummification is the preservation of a body. Ancient Egypt believed very strongly in life after death. They believed the body must be intact in order to pass on into the afterlife. They believed that there were six parts to a human, all of which played a part in their belief of life after death.

Six Parts of Human Life

    All of these things were believed to join the human at birth except fot the akh which was conjured up with spells at the funeral. The ka was like the person's double and it is believed that the ram-headed god, Khnum, created them on the potters' wheel. The ka lived in the body's world but resided in the tomb after death. It was left food, water, and other things it would need to survive. The ba was an idividual who entered the body at birth and left at death. The akh would be what joined the gods in the after-life. It was created after death with texts and spells that were read aloud by a preist. For the egyptians, this assured that the person would not die a second time and be lost forever, but rather have the akh live for all eternity. The body must be intact when it is placed in the tomb because if not, the ka would not reconize it and the other parts of the human would be lost. The name was also very important to them, because they believed a person would live as long as the name was remembered and spoken. So, they used cartouches,"magical ropes", in heiroglyphics and on the sarcophagus to surround the name so that they could protect the name and ensure that it would live on. In preserving the body, the egyptians believed to assure themselves that all the parts of the human would live on and that they were certain to have an after life.
wrapped mummy
sand mummy
    At first, however, Egyptians only buried the dead in sand pits with objects like the ones seen here. They dried naturally from the heat. When the Egyptians wanted to protect the bodies from wild animals, they took the idea of drying the bodies to preserve them, into the process of mummification.

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Process of Mummification
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