Mummies, or dehydrated corpses artificially prepared to preserve them from decomposition, became popular during the 19th century thanks to the fever for Ancient Egypt and its culture. Later, with the arrival of cinema and the idea was spurred by the legend of Tutankhamun’s curse, they became disturbing characters who mercilessly pursue those who have disturbed their rest.
However, if we stick to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, mummies did not “rest”, at least not in the Christian sense of the word. On the contrary, Egyptian religion supported the existence of a life after death, which was an exact copy of the one that the deceased had abandoned on earth. The dead person would continue with his “life” once crossing the threshold, so everything had to be meticulously preserved: objects, furniture, amulets and, above all, the body of the deceased person.
What real meaning do mummies have, then? Why did the Egyptians mummify their dead? What types of rituals did they follow? In today’s article we investigate the mummification process in Ancient Egypt and try to discover its causes and process.
Contrary to what many people believe, the ancient Egyptians did not always apply this process to their deceased. In fact, mummification is relatively “recent”: we find the first cases at the beginning of the IV Dynasty, that is, around 2,600 BC
According to some scholars, the first “mummifier” was the hot and dry sands of the desert, which, during the predynastic period, preserved the corpses buried there from putrefaction. Later, some of these bodies emerged to the surface, possibly due to the activity of animals or thieves.
This phenomenon made it possible to verify that the corpses had been “miraculously” preserved, and this discovery may have fueled the belief in a life after death. As burial sites became more sophisticated and spacious, the air allowed bacterial activity, causing the corpses to rot. To avoid this, the Egyptians developed an artificial process that imitated the effect of the desert The artificial mummification of bodies was born.
The body: an essential element for the afterlife
The ancient Egyptians were not the only ones who preserved their dead from decay. We find countless examples in many parts of the globe, from the mummies of the Chinchorro people, in present-day Chile, to the impressive mummy of ‘Lady Dai’, a woman who lived in China 2,000 years ago.
This shows that in all cultures there has been a desire to survive death and, in fact, most religions talk about it However, mummification goes further, since it is not, as in the Christian case, a belief in the survival of the soul, but also of the body. The preservation of the corpse, therefore, is closely linked to the desire to defeat “destructive” nature and appear, face to face and completely, before the gods.
On the other hand, mummification also hides the idea of personal identity as something non-transferable. In this way, while in other cultures the soul is a somewhat abstract concept, in the Egyptian case it is essentially linked to the body and, therefore, to the name and concrete existence of the deceased. Even more: unlike other religions, the deceased Egyptian cannot survive without his physical presence. The survival of the soul, therefore, is linked to the survival of the body.
The Ka and the Ba find the way
The Egyptians differentiated several elements in the human constitution. The two most important were undoubtedly the Ka, the astral double of the person (which we could identify as the soul) and the Ba, often represented as a bird that flew on the boundaries of earthly life and the afterlife Both elements were essential for life after death, but for this a third component was essential, the Khat, which was nothing other than the physical body of the person.
The Egyptians believed that, when death occurred, the Ka and Ba of the deceased were disoriented. If they did not have something known that would allow them to locate themselves, these two elements would wander wandering for all eternity. It was necessary, therefore, for the Khat to be nearby, so that Ka and Ba would recognize themselves in the deceased and, therefore, could unite and find the correct path to the afterlife.
This matter was, indeed, a serious issue for the Egyptians. The obsession with helping the soul not to become disoriented in its task led them to cover the walls of the tombs with scenes that were familiar, as well as to fill the tomb with personal objects of the deceased. The goal was for both the Ka and the Ba to feel comfortable and be able to recognize each other, as well as relate to the identity of the deceased And, if all this was not enough, the Egyptians had a huge number of magical formulas (recovered in the famous Book of the Dead) that helped the soul find its way.
Osiris, the dead and resurrected
Experts agree that one of the most popular myths, that of the death and resurrection of the god Osiris, had a lot to do with the development of mummification in ancient Egypt This deity was venerated as the Lord of the Dead; His kingdom was the afterlife and he presided over the heart weighings that Anubis carried out, with the aim of determining whether the good actions of the deceased allowed him to enter the afterlife.
According to Egyptian mythology, Osiris was the brother/husband of Isis. Tradition considered them the first rulers of the Nile country, whose rule brought unprecedented prosperity. However, Seth, their evil brother, was jealous of her glory and his power. Filled with anger, he murdered Osiris, dismembered him and hid the pieces of the body in all corners of the world.
Isis, the heartbroken widow, traveled around the world lovingly collecting the remains of her husband’s body. She managed to recover all of them except the penis, which had been devoured by a large fish. Since Isis was the Lady of Magic, she was able to unite all the pieces and resurrect Osiris with her spells Although the god lacked a limb, his wife managed to bear him a son, Horus, who was destined to confront his uncle and recover the kingdom of his parents.
The myth of the divinity that dies and resurrects is common in cultures. We also find it in Greece, with Persephone and Adonis, in Scandinavia, with Odin, and of course in the Christian world with the figure of Christ. In the case of Egypt, the survival of Osiris in the afterlife and the rebirth of his body (from the pieces collected by Isis) spurred the belief in the extension of life beyond death and the importance of preservation of the body to guarantee the soul an immortal existence.
What was the mummification process like?
Up to this point, we have tried to explain why the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead. However, how did they do it? The Greek historian Herodotus, who traveled through the country of the Nile and was fascinated by its culture, provides us with a very detailed description of it. According to his testimony, there were three mummification processes, which were carried out according to status and, above all, according to the amount of money that the family of the deceased was willing to pay It would be the equivalent of the rates that we can currently find in any funeral home (things have not changed that much, as we can see).
Firstly, we would have the most expensive method, used only by royalty, clergy and wealthy people. In this case, the brain was extracted through the nostrils using an iron hook and was then discarded, since for the Egyptians this organ was unimportant. Afterwards, a cut was made on the left side of the abdomen that was used to extract the rest of the viscera, which were carefully deposited in the four canopic vessels.
Once empty, the body was washed with palm wine and filled with spices, such as myrrh Subsequently, it was sewn and immersed in natron for seventy days, after which it was washed again and bandaged with linen. When the process was finished, the body was returned to the family so that they could proceed to the funeral.
The second technique had a medium cost. The main difference with the first was that the intestines of the deceased were not removed, and the aromatic oil was injected through the anus. The body was also subjected to the action of natron and drainage with oil, which dissolved the viscera and meat.
Finally, there was a third method, the most humble and cheapest, which was the one used by families with few resources. This technique was reduced to cleaning the intestines of the dead and immersing it in natron for the required seventy days. Obviously, the preservation of the corpse was much more precarious than in the first two cases.
It is necessary to highlight that the heart was the only viscera that remained in the body after mummification, since it was believed that the Ab resided there, that is, the identity of the deceased Good and bad actions were accumulated in the heart, and it was this organ that Anubis placed on the scales of Maat, justice, to check whether the dead person was worthy of eternal life. If the heart weighed more than the light feather of Maat (which was placed on the opposite plate), Ammyt, the monster, devoured the soul of the deceased, and his journey was over forever.
