Chapter 10
In This Chapter
● Contemplating life and afterlife, Egyptian style
● Unravelling the process of mummification
● Assisting the deceased towards the afterlife
● Resurrecting the dead
Most information from ancient Egypt comes from a funerary context, giving the impression that the Egyptians were obsessed with death and spent most of their time and wealth preparing for their earthly ends.
The ancient Egyptians were, in fact, obsessed with life and wanted to continue living for eternity. Although each individual no doubt had his or her own beliefs, evidence generally suggests that the ancient Egyptians believed careful preparation enabled them to make their lives after death more prosperous than their lives before. In fact, they believed that the afterlife (for ordinary Egyptians at least) was a perfect replica of Egypt, known as the Field of Reeds.
The Field of Reeds relied heavily on the solar cycle, and some believed the dead lay in primordial darkness until the sun god started his nocturnal journey in the afterlife. Although this landscape was abundant in water and vegetation, the provision of funerary goods, food, and elaborate tombs ensured the deceased’s continuing happiness after death.
This chapter delves into one of the most frequently discussed (and often misunderstood) aspects of ancient Egyptian life - the preparation and burial of the dead through the physical and spiritual process of mummification.
Understanding the Egyptian Essence of Humanity
The Egyptians believed that a human being was made up of six elements or components. On death, these elements spontaneously separated. For a successful rebirth, all six elements were reunited through the funerary rituals, prayers, and offerings normally carried out by the priests and living family members.
The six elements were
● The ka, or the life force, which animated the individual - rather like batteries animate a toy.
● The ba, which was depicted as a human-headed bird. The ba represented the personality of the deceased.
● The akh, which was the name of the spirit created by combining ba and ka.
● The deceased’s name, which was supposed to be repeated by the living for eternal life to be possible.
● The shadow, which is a little known aspect of the individual. It ties in with the solar cult, because without the sun, no shadow exists.
● The physical body, which was considered to be the combination of all these spiritual elements. The physical body was preserved by the process of mummification.
The Opening of the Mouth ceremony
The ba and ka were united in the afterlife through the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. This post-mummification ritual ensured the ka could see, hear, smell, breathe, and eat - all essential activities for life. For unknown reasons,the ba did not seem to need these earthly functions; when the ba was united with the ka for a length of time, it was nourished.
A sem priest (funerary priest) held a ceremonial adze (an axe-like hand tool) to the mouth of the mummy, which was believed to open the airways. The sem priest then offered prayers and anointed the mummy with oils. The ancient Egyptians considered this ceremony so important thatthey sometimes included images of the
pots and jars used in the ritual on the coffin (examples appear on the interior of some Middle Kingdom coffins at the head end) in case the ritual hadn't been completed correctly and as a means of ensuring the instruments for this important ceremony were close to the body, thus increasing the ritual's effects.
The successful union of the ba and ka created another element of the body, the akh or spirit. The deceased was transformed into an eternal being of light. Although the akh was not divine, it had characteristics in common with the deities - the akh was able to intervene with the living and converse with the gods.
Cursing the Egyptologists
Mummies have inspired imaginations for centuries, causing both fear and awe. Over the decades, Hollywood has bombarded us with imaginative movies of mummies coming alive and chasing unsuspecting archaeologists around tombs. The mummies of horror movies are always evil, because of a curse placed on the tomb or the mummy itself.
The most famous curse story began during the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 by Howard Carter and his team. The locals working with the team were very superstitious and believed entering the tomb would activate an ancient curse. To prevent the locals from entering the tomb at night and disturbing the excavations, the excavation team did not deny the curse, and the story was eventually picked up by an English newspaper.
From that point on, every death of a member of the excavation team was blamed on the curse, even those that happened 20 or so years later - a very slow-working curse, which included natural causes!
The only slightly odd event was an electrical blackout in Cairo at the time of Lord Carnarvon’s death from an infected insect bite. (See Chapter 15 for more on Lord Carnarvon’s contribution to the Tutankhamun excavation.) Of course, blackouts happened in Cairo regularly at the time - and still do, without any rational explanation. If you look hard enough, you can find significance in anything.
Of the thousands of tombs excavated in Egypt, only two have curses as such, to deter tomb robbers (the first is from the Tomb of Ursa, early New Kingdom; the second from a sixth dynasty tomb of Harkkhuf in Aswan):
He who trespassed upon my property or who shall injure my tomb or drag out my mummy the sun-god shall punish him. He shall not bequeath his goods to his children; his heart shall not have pleasure in life; he shall not receive water (for his ka to drink) in the tomb; and his soul shall be destroyed for ever.
As for anyone who enters this tomb unclean, I shall seize him by the neck like a bird, he will be judged for it by the great god.
Don’t worry, Egyptologists aren’t in danger from these curses. They don’t enter the tombs to injure, but to reconstruct, conserve, and learn about the owners and their history and culture.
For the ancient Egyptians, the repetition of a name ensured a prolonged afterlife. Through the study of the tombs and publication of the findings, Egyptologists are resurrecting the tombs’ owners - which is what they desired all those thousands of years ago. Of course, debate continues as to whether placing mummies in museums (in store or on display) is appropriate.
I am sure the ancient Egyptians wouldn’t be overly keen on today’s flashy exhibitions. However, if modern Egyptologists didn’t excavate the tombs, the ancient Egyptian’s history, names and lives would be lost for eternity - the oblivion feared by all ancient Egyptians. A museum may not be the resurrection they wanted, but it is a resurrection and an eternal life of sorts.
Getting Aft Wrapped Up: Mummies for Dummies
The process of mummification can take two forms:
● Natural: The body is preserved in sand, ice, or peat.
● Artificial: The body is preserved by humans using a variety of hands-on methods.
Ancient Egypt offers examples of both forms of mummies.
In the pre-dynastic period (3500 BC), the Egyptians buried their dead in shallow pits dug into the sand on the desert edge. The pits were unlined, and the unwrapped bodies were placed in a foetal position, directly into the sand. Funerary goods consisted primarily of pots containing food and drink needed for the afterlife, which suggests that the Egyptians held a belief in life after death in this period.
When animals and shifting sands uncovered the bodies, the Egyptians realised that the skin and hair had been naturally preserved by the sand in which the bodies had been buried. The Egyptians began attempting to guarantee the preservation of the dead, rather than leaving it to chance. Over the years, the process of artificially preserving bodies evolved.
Experimenting on the dead
Various experimental mummification methods were introduced between 3500 BC and 2600 BC, including
● Pot burials. Fully grown adults were tightly flexed and placed inside large clay pots. The addition of a lid created a cocoon in which the body was sealed, buried in the ground and finally covered with sand.
● Reed trays. The body was placed on a shallow reed tray in a tightly flexed position and lain on its side. Rather than a lid, a linen cloth or animal skin was thrown over the body. This tray was then placed into a shallow pit and covered with sand.
● Animal skins. Prior to 3000 BC, the dead were wrapped in animal skins and placed into the shallow burial pits and covered with sand.
All the preceding methods resulted in the disintegration of the soft tissues, because the bodies were removed from contact with the substance that naturally preserved them - the sand. Skeletal remains are all that exist from these early attempts at preserving bodies.
Improving mummification practices
After the failure of early burial experiments, the Egyptians decided to preserve bodies before burial.
The earliest example of mummification was a royal burial of the first dynasty, belonging to King Djer. It was discovered by Petrie in the late 19th century.
All that remained of this body was a mummified arm, adorned with bracelets of semi-precious stones. Unfortunately, the archaeologists were more interested in the jewellery than the arm, and the curator of the Cairo museum, Emile Brugsch, threw the arm part away. Luckily, however, they did take a solitary photograph of this early form of mummification - or rather, of how pretty the bracelets looked on the arm.
Mummification was only for the elite of society, and the multitudes of poor Egyptians were buried in pit burials, similar to the pre-dynastic examples, throughout Egyptian history. The only real difference is that mummified bodies after the pre-dynastic period were extended and not flexed.
Looking to the burial professional: The embalmer
Even though many examples of mummified bodies and tombs exist today, no written record from ancient Egypt is available that describes the process of mummification. The most complete record available is from Herodotus, a Greek historian from the fifth century BC.
Buried alive?
After the pre-dynastic period, animal skins were thought to be unclean and weren't used for wrapping the body. However, one example from the 18th dynasty, found in the Deir el Bahri royal cache, is of a young man stitched into a fleece. His hands and legs are tied with rope and no mummification is indicated on the body.
The man's open-mouthed expression suggests that he was stitched into the skin while still alive, and his presence in the royal cache suggests he was of royal blood. He was probably found guilty of a crime, although his crime is unknown. To deny him mummification and a proper burial condemned him to eternal death.
After an ancient Egyptian died, the body was taken to an embalmers’ workshop, which was probably a temporary structure in the local cemetery. Because no evidence of these structures survives, historians are unsure of how many might have existed. The embalmers’ workshops probably contained ready-made coffins and amulets, so the relatives could choose the appropriate assemblage according to their budget.
The senior embalmers were priests and were held in high esteem. The most senior embalmer in charge of wrapping the body wore a jackal mask, representing Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming.
Despite the high esteem in which embalmers were held, Herodotus records that the bodies of rich and powerful women were typically held back for a few days before being taken to the workshop, to prevent the bodies from being defiled. For example, when the 18th-dynasty mummy of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari was unwrapped, her body showed signs of decomposition of soft tissues before mummification. Although she was in her 70s when she died, her position as a queen may have rendered her desirable even after death - to someone who was that way inclined. (Of course, the sources and truthfulness of Herodotus’s information are unknown.)
Stepping through the embalming process
The most expensive and comprehensive method of mummification made the deceased look like Osiris, the god of the underworld. Egyptians believed that the deceased king - and by the Middle Kingdom, deceased nobles - become like Osiris on death.
More inexpensive mummification methods were available (see ‘Considering budget burials’, later in this chapter, for details), but the following outlines the complete process.
Removing the brain
In the New Kingdom, the embalmers usually removed the brain first. Ancient Egyptians believed that thought processes and emotions occurred in the heart, so the brain was superfluous. (Know any people like that?)
The embalmers broke the ethmoid bone at the top of the nose and removed the brain piecemeal with a hook through the nasal cavity. However, experiments have shown that this method would have inefficiently removed the brain in tiny pieces.
To improve this part of the process, a liquid of juniper oil and a turpentine substance was typically poured up the nose and left for a few minutes to dissolve the remains of the brain, which were then poured out through the nostrils and disposed of. Remnants of dissolved and solidified brain matter have been found at the back of skulls.
Liposuction - Egyptian style
After removing the brain, the embalmers then made a cut in the left side of the lower abdomen with a flint knife and removed the whole contents of the abdomen, except the heart. The embalmer who made this initial slit was then ceremoniously chased out of the workshop, with people throwing stones, sticks, and abuse at him for defiling the body. Whether he returned to the workshop is unknown; I for one would have stayed well away.
After the organs were removed, the abdomen was thoroughly cleaned - first with palm wine and again with an infusion of pounded spices with antibacterial properties to stop the cavity from smelling.
After drying the cavity, the embalmers filled it with a mixture of aromatic substances; linen or sawdust was inserted to give the empty cavity shape. The body was then sewn up and the slit hidden by a bronze or leather leafshaped cover.
Preserving the innards
The viscera removed from the bodies were treated as carefully as the bodies themselves. They were dried in natron, a natural salt substance that came from the Wadi Natron (the Natron Valley). The dried organs were then wrapped in linen and placed inside canopic jars, which in turn were placed inside rectangular canopic chests made of the same material as the coffins and sarcophagi.
The canopic jars had lids in the form of four animal heads, which represent the Four Sons of Horus (the hawk-headed god of order). The Four Sons of Horus each had a specific role to play in the afterlife, because they protected a part of the body and then provided the body with its essential internal organs when the deceased was reborn. The Four Sons of Horus were:
● Imsety, a human head, which protected the liver.
● Hapy, an ape head, which protected the lungs.
● Duamutef, a jackal head, which protected the stomach.
● Qebehsenuef, a falcon head, which protected the intestines.
Dryinq the body
The stuffed body was then placed on an embalming table for 35-40 days with natron packed around the body, completely covering it. Examples of these long, low embalming tables have been discovered in the embalming caches. The location of these tables during drying and the security measures utilised are sadly unknown.
Optional extras
Ever ingenious, Egyptian embalmers developed additional mummification processes to further prepare the bodies of the deceased. Some interesting extras that have been discovered include:
● Post-mortem skin treatment. An elderly priestess, Nesitetnabtaris from the New Kingdom, was bedridden for a large proportion other later years because of a fracture in her neck. As a result, her back, buttocks, and shoulders were covered in bed-sores and abscesses. After she died, the embalmers stitched up the worst of the abscesses with flax and covered the stitching with resin so it wasn't visible. They then covered the bed sores with a large gazelle skin stitched to the priestess's back, buttocks, and shoulders. This procedure ensured her body was reborn in the afterlife as complete and perfect-albeit with a go-faster stripe!
● Gender reassignment. Mummy 1770 in the Manchester Museum presented a multitude of problems for the embalmers. She died at the age of 14 in the New Kingdom and was rewrapped 800 years later; the newerwrap-pings are the ones that have survived. She was obviously rewrapped due to the shocking state of her original wrappings, perhaps after a tomb robbery. Before the rewrapping, embalmers did not know her name, identity, or sex. To hedge their bets, the embalmers provided gold nipple covers -to ensure lactation in the afterlife - as well as a penis made of a roll of linen bandages. The expectation was that in the afterlife she would use what she needed. The embalmers presumably thought their ignorance would never be exposed - but modern sexing techniques uncovered the blunder.
After 35-40 days, the body was removed, washed, and prepared for wrapping, which took up to an additional 30 days, ensuring the entire process took no more than 70 days in total.
Interestingly, the star Sirius, associated with Osiris, disappears for 70 days at a time. Osiris also disappeared for 70 days before his resurrection. Symbolically, the deceased becomes Osiris on death, disappearing for 70 days during the mummification process and then being reborn in the afterlife.
Wrapping the body
Wrapping the body was just as important as its preservation, and a priest wearing an Anubis mask (the god of embalming) was responsible for the job.
The priest needed large amounts of linen to wrap a body - up to 400 square metres have been discovered on some mummies, with more than 40 layers of wrappings.
Deceased royalty had their funerary linen specially made by the temple and harem workshops. Some of the wrappings of Ramses II were even woven from blue and gold thread.
Given the amount of linen required for wrappings, and its expense, non-royal bodies were unlikely to be bound in material made especially for burial, or even in linen provided by one household. Because they found different names on wrappings of the same mummy, researchers think that friends and relatives may have provided the linen required. Perhaps if someone died, the whole village donated linen to the family.
The evolution of wrapping
Wrapping styles changed over the years. The dates of mummies can be identified according to certain characteristics:
● Old Kingdom: Each limb was wrapped individually, including each finger and toe. The wrappings were then coated in resin. Plaster was moulded over the bandages of the face and painted in lifelike colours.
● Middle Kingdom: Mummies were wrapped in the traditional shape with all the limbs wrapped together. The hands were placed flat over the thighs or crossed over the genitalia. Mummy masks replaced the painted plaster, and many of these masks have full beards and moustaches, sometimes painted blue or green. Perhaps the earliest punks?
● New Kingdom: Additions were made to the mummies before wrapping, including eyes inlaid with onyx and crystal to maintain the shape. (However, Ramses IV was given two small onions as eyes - now that would definitely make your eyes water!) The arms of the royal mummies were crossed over the chest and the hands were often closed into fists.
● Ptolemaic period: Embalmers used very thin strips of fabric, arranged into intricate geometric patterns and decorated with studs and stars.
● Roman period: Elaborately painted portraits of the deceased in life were wrapped amid the bandages.
● Roman era: Elaborate mummy portraits were placed among the wrappings, representing the dead when they were alive.
Inclusions in the wrappings
From the New Kingdom onwards, texts from the Book of the Dead (refer to the later section ‘The Book of the Dead’) were sometimes written on the bandages to aid the deceased in the afterlife. These passages were appropriately placed on the relevant body parts to ensure protection.
While each limb of the mummy was bandaged, the priests recited spells from the funerary texts of the period (see ‘Guiding the Dead in the Underworld’, later in this chapter) to render each limb divine and ensure the deceased was reborn for eternity. No wonder wrapping took 30 days! Amid all the bandages, the embalmers placed numerous amulets that aided the deceased in the afterlife.
Considering budget burials
Cheaper mummification processes were available from the Middle Kingdom onwards, as evidenced in several surviving mummies from these periods. However, as mentioned in the preceding section, ‘Looking to the Burial Professional: The embalmer’, the exact process is recorded only in Herodotus’ writing from the fifth century BC.
In general, these cheaper techniques did not involve removal of the internal organs. The mixture of juniper oil and turpentine was injected into the body through the anus, which was stopped up to prevent the liquid escaping (the most extreme enema!). After a period, the plug was removed and the liquid was drained, releasing the dissolved organs with it. However, the organs of some mummies did not dissolve evenly, and partially dissolved innards clogged the anus.
The body was then soaked in natron for 40 days, after which it was washed and prepared for wrapping. An even cheaper alternative involved dissolving the organs, drying the body, and returning the mummy to the relatives without wrapping.
An ancient cover-up
The mummy of a 22nd dynasty priest from the temple of Khonsu at Karnak, Nesperenub, was the subject of a British Museum 3D exhibition in 2004. The mummy was placed in a cartonnage coffin, which was made of plastered layers of fibre or papyrus. The coffin couldn't be removed without destroying it. For many years, X-rays highlighted a strange object attached to the back of Nesperenub's head. This irregularity caused much puzzlement. With the use of CT (computerised tomography) scans and digital imaging, researchers were able to look inside Nesperenub's body in a way that had never been achieved before.
The CT scan identified the object as a roughly moulded clay bowl, complete with the potter's fingerprints. It would seem that while the embalmers were gluing the first layer of bandages to the head with resin, they placed the bowl beneath the head to catch the run-off. However, it was clearly the end of their shift, they forgot the bowl was there, and when they returned to work in the morning the resin had set solid, gluing the bowl to the head. Marks on the back of the head indicate that the embalmers tried to chisel the bowl off. They gave up and decided to include it in the wrappings. Who would ever know?
Returning to sender
After the bodies were wrapped, the embalmers returned them to the families for burial. However, bodies were not always buried straight away because family tombs were opened only every few years to limit robberies. While a mummy awaited final burial, it was stored in a room either at the embalmers’ workshop for a rich family or in the home for a poorer family.
Getting dressed up: Clothes to be seen dead in
In addition to wrappings, linen clothes were also placed on or around the bodies, although whether embalmers or family members dressed mummies is unknown.
● A fifth-dynasty female had nine shirts buried with her inside her wooden coffin. Two of them were clearly designed as grave goods because they were very long (142 centimetres) and very narrow, rendering them unwearable in real life.
● A mummy dated to 2362 BC from Tarkhan, currently in the Petrie Museum, was buried with clothing that shows creasing under the armpits and on the elbows, indicating it had been worn in life and was probably a much loved outfit.
● Other clothing examples discovered in tombs were turned inside out and folded, which was a practice that Egyptian laundries used to indicate that garments had been laundered. These inside-out garments indicate that burial clothing was also worn in life.
Tidying up
After the embalmers completed the mummification process and the body was handed back to the family, all the material from each embalming process was buried in an individual cache. This process suggests that one cache should exist for each burial; sadly this is not the case in the archaeological record.
A number of embalmers’ caches have been discovered from Thebes and Saqqara, including that of Tutankhamun. These caches include all the material that was used in the embalming process:
● Labelled pots and jars containing coloured powders for colouring the mummy
● Resins for filling, deodorising, and sanitising the mummy
● Linen for stuffing and wrapping
● Natron for desiccating
● Wax for covering the body and some of the orifices
● Various oils for curing and scenting the body, as well as making it supple
● Terebinth resin as deodorant and perfume
● Sawdust and chaff for stuffing cavities
● Lamps and fragments of the funerary feast held after the funeral in the tomb chapel
● A broom to sweep the footprints away of the last person to have been in the tomb
Some of the caches also contain the embalming table, which was a low table because most of the mummification process was performed from the squatting position. These tables are stained with natron, oils, and bodily fluids.
At the time of writing, the most recently discovered tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV63) is being excavated. All seven coffins opened are full of embalmers’ material similar to that used in the burial of Tutankhamun, including floral collars worn at funerals. A number of large storage vessels in the tomb are filled with natron, bandages, and various vessels, indicating that the tomb may have been an embalmers’ workshop rather than a burial place. The new tomb may be the embalming cache for an as-yet-undiscovered tomb!
Catching the imagination
Although the practice of mummification declined in the Roman period, mummies and the ancient Egyptians' burial processes have remained intriguing to the world ever since.
From AD 50 to the 19th century, the ideas regarding mummies were increasingly bizarre. Because mummies were between 2,000 and 4,000 years old, many believed they held the secret of eternal life. Mummies were commonly ground down to a powder, referred to as mumia, and eaten as an elixir of life. The King of Persia even sent Queen Victoria a small vial of bitumen (associated with production of the late-period mummies) for her health. One wonders if her long life was due to taking a little mummia with her tea!
In the late 19th century, the wealthy also frequently purchased mummies to display in their houses. Public unrollings of mummies were elite social events, at which ladies were known to faint at the ghastly sight as men looked on in scientific interest. Because the demand for genuine ancient mummies for unrolling events soon outstripped supply, the enterprising Egyptians made fake mummies, dried and aged in the sun, to sell to unsuspecting rich western tourists.
Guiding the bead in the Underworld
Although the embalmers preserved the bodies, further precautions were included in the tombs to ensure that the deceased weren’t hindered on their journey to rebirth and the afterlife.
These precautions were in the form of ‘guide books’ to the afterlife. Instructions were written on coffins, walls, papyri, and bandages, and gave the deceased necessary information for travelling through the afterlife and obtaining eternal life. The following sections discuss the most common guides for the dead.
The Pyramid Texts
The Pyramid Texts are the earliest funerary texts, and not surprisingly they are written in the pyramids from the reign of Unas of the fifth dynasty until the reign of Ibi, an obscure king from the eighth dynasty.
The texts were inscribed in the burial chamber and antechamber of the pyramid (see Chapter 14 for more on pyramid architecture) and do not include pictures of any kind. The hieroglyphs are painted green to represent regeneration.
The Pyramid Texts were initially designed for royal burials, but by the end of the Old Kingdom some chapters of the text were being used in non-royal tombs. The spells were initially concerned with the afterlife of the king and present different fates for him - all equal in importance. These fates were:
● The king can ascend to the sky to become a star amid his ancestors.
● On death, the king can become Osiris, the god of the underworld.
● The king can join the sun god in his solar bark (divine boat) and accompany him on his nocturnal journey.
Obviously, contradictions existed in the belief system concerning what actually happened after the king died. Even from this early period, the Egyptians appear to have as many ideas about the afterlife as their modern counterparts.
The Pyramid Texts were made up of three categories, consisting of a number of spells, or chapters. Different combinations of spells were chosen to decorate the pyramids. The three categories included:
● Incantations, which were of a protective nature. Incantations were use to ward off snakes and other dangers that the deceased king may come across in the afterlife that could affect his rebirth.
● Funerary spells, which associated the deceased with a manifestation of Osiris. These spells describe the king’s journey into the afterlife and were often inscribed in the burial chamber. These words are narrated by the king’s son in his role as Horus, the son of Osiris. These texts describe offerings and resurrection rituals, including the words of the Opening of the Mouth ceremony (see the sidebar ‘The Opening of the Mouth ceremony’, earlier in this chapter, for more).
● Personal spells, which the deceased was to use for his or her journey in the afterlife. These spells were placed in the antechamber and the passage leading out of the pyramid, aiding the ka as it left the tomb. These spells refer to the landscape of the underworld and include imagery such as crossing water and ascending a ladder to the sky.
The Coffin Texts
At the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts evolved into the Coffin Texts - very imaginatively named, because the Coffin Texts were inscribed primarily on coffins (although inscriptions have been found on tomb walls, mummy masks, and papyri as well).
The Coffin Texts were similar to the Pyramid Texts, although new spells were added. They were available for both royal and non-royal individuals.
The Coffin Texts further developed some ideas introduced in the Pyramid Texts, including:
● The heavenly travels of the ba alongside the sun god in the solar bark.
● The idea that existence in the afterlife is reliant on the nourishment of the ka. The preservation of human remains is essential so that ba and ka can unite to become reborn. Because of this, the offering frieze was one of the most important elements of the Coffin Texts and consisted of an elaborately painted scene of all the goodies given to the deceased (food, clothes, weapons, and jewellery).
● Personal spells were still present, although they were incorporated into Guides to the Hereafter, the most common of which was the Book of the Two Ways. The Book of the Two Ways was an introduction to the Netherworld, accompanied by a map that showed how to gain access to it and all notable landmarks. Just what any traveller needs. These maps, dominated by two paths consisting of earth and water, can often be seen on the base of coffins.
The Book of the Bead
The New Kingdom was a renaissance for funerary texts, with many different versions being produced, including The Book of the Dead with its more than 200 spells compiled from the Pyramid and the Coffin Texts, plus some new, updated additions.
Text from the Book of the Dead was written on coffins, linen mummy shrouds, papyrus, tomb walls, and bandages, and was often illustrated with colourful vignettes relating to the text. (Earlier funerary texts consisted primarily of text only.)
Some noteworthy additions include:
● Spell 125, which relates to the judgement of the deceased and his worthiness to receive eternal life.
● Specifications that some chapters need to be written on certain objects to obtain the best results. For example:
• Chapter 6 should be written on shabti figures, servant statues that were placed in the tomb to work on behalf of the deceased. (No one wants to think eternity is filled with mundane chores!)
• Chapter 26, 27, 29b, and 30b, were to be written on heart scarabs, which were large scarabs placed over the heart. The scarabs were implored not to give away any naughty secrets when the deceased stood before Osiris in the Hall of Judgement.
• Spell 100 should be written on a clean, unused papyrus using a powder of green pigment mixed with myrrh and water. This sheet should be placed on the breast of the mummy without actually touching the body. If this was done, the deceased was able to board the bark (sacred boat) of Re and thus hang out with the most important of the gods! A very important spell indeed.
● Indications that certain spells or sections of spells were to be read aloud by different people, including the ka priests, embalmers, and the deceased themselves. Spells to be read by the deceased were placed in the tomb as close to the body as possible in the burial chamber, so the ka would have immediate access to this information as soon as it left the body.
With so many clear specifications, not all 200 chapters of the Book of the Dead were ever written out in full in any one place.
Guides to the Hereafter
Unlike the Book of the Dead, the Guides to the Hereafter, which included the Book of Gates and the Book of the Amduat, were not a constantly changing collection of spells, but the first religious books whose contents were set, followed a theme, and were to be viewed in a specific order. The Guides to the Hereafter were only ever used by kings and were generally not even allowed in the tombs of queens. These books are currently visible in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings (see Chapter 13).
The Guides to the Hereafter were more illustrated than the Book of the Dead and followed the 12-hour nocturnal journey of the sun god, accompanied by the deceased.
In the story, the nocturnal journey starts at sunset for the sun and at burial for the deceased. The sun carries its light into the underworld and travels to the east to be reborn. Each hour of the 12-hour journey is separated by gates or portals protected by demons and serpents. The deceased needs to recite the name of the demon and the gate to pass through. Many of the hours include demons willing to harm the sun god and his companions - a real good-versus-evil scenario that would make a great film! At the end of the 12 hours, the sun is reborn into the sky, and the deceased is reborn into the afterlife.
It was not necessary to have all 12 hours inscribed on a tomb wall, coffin, or papyri, and often a representative one or two hours were used depending on the space available.
Tipping the balance
After the deceased negotiated his or her way through all the portals and gateways of the afterlife, there was just one tiny task left to perform before the deceased was left alone for eternity. This is to enter the Hall of Judgement, to stand before Osiris, the god of the underworld, and prove their worth.
The heart of the deceased was weighed against the feather of truth (Maat). If the heart was heavier, it was devoured by the monster (Amut) waiting nearby, thus preventing the deceased from being reborn and cursing the deceased to reside in eternal limbo.
Rather than leaving the weighing of his or her heart to chance, the deceased recited the negative confession from the Book of the Dead, which tells the 42 judges of the underworld all the things that the deceased has not done. Cunning really, because if you had done something, don’t mention it and no one would ever know! The negative confession included the following lines:
I have done no falsehood.
I have not robbed.
I have not been rapacious.
I have not killed men.
The confession continues along these lines, combining trivial things and terrible crimes almost as if they are the same thing. If anything is missed out from the confession, the heart scarab (see preceding section ‘The Book of the Dead’) was inscribed with a prayer encouraging the scarab not to betray any wrongdoings still present within the heart.
Although the weighing of the heart sounds terrifying, the numerous examples of this scene show that not one person failed. So obviously reciting the negative confession worked.
Nourishing the ka
After the deceased was reborn into the afterlife, it was essential to maintain a cult of the ka to ensure he or she lived eternally. For royalty, this cult was practised within a mortuary temple and involved numerous priests. For laymen, however, if they were wealthy enough to have a tomb with a tomb chapel, family members acted as the ka priests and kept the cult active, or paid a priest to perform at the tomb. For poorer individuals, family members maintained the cult within the home.
Knowing was beyond even the Egyptians
Despite all the ancient Egyptians' efforts to preserve their bodies for eternity, not everyone was certain that the afterlife existed.
In some tombs from the New Kingdom, blind harpers are shown entertaining the elite at banquets. Above some of these harpers are the lyrics of the following song:
What has been done with them?
What are their places now?
Their walls have crumbled and their places are not
As if they have never been.
No one has ever come back from the dead
That he might describe their condition,
And relate their needs;
That he might calm our hearts
Until we too pass into that place where they have gone
Let us make holiday and never tire of it!
For behold no man can take his property with him,
No man who has gone can ever return again.
Clearly, the Egyptians were uncertain of the reality of the afterlife. But of course they continued with their mummification and funerary preparations, just to hedge their bets!
One of the most important elements of the cult of the ka was the constant food offerings, which were laid before a stela (a statue or false door) for the daily sustenance of the ka. These offerings consisted of bread, beer, fowl, oxen, and vegetables. Presumably the families tried to ensure that the offerings included food the deceased liked when he or she was alive. Nothing is worse than having to survive for eternity on fish heads and cabbage if you don’t like them!
Accompanying these offerings were prayers and incantations, which primarily ensured that the name of the deceased was kept alive through repetition.
For royalty, these prayers and offerings were made twice daily to the ka statue of the king within his mortuary temple. For the rest of the community, the level of devotion was time-consuming and intrusive, so ceremonies were likely to be carried out weekly, monthly or annually, depending on the particular family and their commitments.