Egyptians Belief In Life After Death Leads To Preservation Of Cadaver

By Author: Ann Philip
Total Articles: 91
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Egyptians believed in life after death. Ancient Egyptians became more famous for their way of death than their way of life. People all over the world are fascinated by the ancient Egyptian’s world of death and life after death.

When we think about Egyptian mummy, the first thing that comes into our mind is a human body wrapped in bandages and buried inside a pyramid. With the development of modern technology, Egyptian mummies are not just bodies of dead people, but are scientific specimens that can give more details about the people of Egypt and their life. Still researches based on mummies are going around the world.

Normally when we die our soft tissues and skeletons are eaten away by germs and bacteria. But the ancient Egyptians believed that mummifying a person’s body after death will ensure a safe passage to the life after death.

Even now the exact process of mummification is unknown to the world. The researches show that mummification was done based on the financial status of a person. When the wealthy people will be mummified in a very lavish way, the middle class people will be mummified in a ...
... frugal way. For the poor people mummification process will be minimal, just to preserve the body.

In the beginning, mummification process was very simple. They will place the dead person’s body in a pit and the heat from the desert will dehydrate the moist flesh. And they will keep this as the preserved body. Later they introduced new techniques to preserve the body. After the death of the person the body will taken by the embalmers to the ibu, which is the tent for purification. Once they taken into the ibu they will clean and anoint it with sacred oils. Then it will be taken to the wabet, the place of embalming. There they will remove organs like brain, intestine and stomach and keep it inside separate jars, because these organs will decompose easily. Then the body will be submerged in a solution of natron salt. Then the drying process will takes place and the traces of natron salt will be removed.

The cadaver is then taken to per nefer, the house of beauty, for stuffing. During the stuffing process they will apply many perfumes and oil on the body and the open wounds will be sealed with wax. Then the whole body will be covered with molten resin and line cloth. For both women and men they use ochre to color the cadaver. Men will be colored red and women will be colored yellow. The wrapping process will take nearly fifteen days to complete.

The best mummy making method was found in the 21st dynasty. They were interested in beautifying mummies. During the wrapping process they will fill wax over the eyelids and plug the nose and ear with wax or linen. After the wrapping process, eyes will be replaced with stones, paints or painted linen. Towards the end of 22nd dynasty mummifying techniques began to decline.
Nowadays people are using these mummies for research purposes. They use techniques like X-ray scanning, CAT scanning and DNA testing to examine mummies. These techniques help to get data without destroying the preserved mummies’. We can decode the age of a mummy by checking the bones and teeth. We can collect lot of information about mummy and its evolution from various websites. I collected data on mummy and the process of mummification from one of my history teachers. She is always there to clear my doubts. Now she is residing in Canada. So I will call her from my home phone connected to service from providers like Time Warner phone to clarify my doubts.

As a freelancer, Ann is interested in writing about historic events. She collects data on this regard from her nearby library. She even call her history teacher from my home phone connected to service from providers like Time Warner phone to collect details.