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Egyptian Beliefs
Process of Mummification
Egyptian gods and goddesses
Ra-Horakhty Nut Isis
So I decided I wanted to learn more about religion and mummification, so I walked around asking the Ancient Egyptians some questions, and heres some of the questions I asked and the answers I got:
"How does religion influence every aspect of Ancient Egyptian life?"
"Well, an example is treatment for women, which is based of of Isis, who protected Osiris's family after his death. Women have the freedom of marriage, and to own property. They also have an important role in our community and religious ceremonies and temple rituals. Without Isis women could be treated horribly."
I asked another person the same question, and got this answer,
"We have a mummification process, which is a burial for dead bodys. Osiris, one of our gods introduced mummifiying to us, so we have a process, to relenquish the soul from its body to live in the afterlife with Osiris."
I then asked 3 of the Egyptians about some of the characteristics of their religious/ belief system was like, and these are the answers I got,
"Our veiw of the afterlife is when you die, you go through gods, strange creatures and more, before you go to Osiris and the hall of final judgement. There you plea your case of why you should be allowed to go to the afterlife. The judgement is a two step process. The first step is going before 42 divine judges and saying why you should go to the afterlife to them. The book of the dead helps you with the words you should say in front of each of those judges. The second step is weighing the heart. They weigh your heart with goddess Ma'at's feather of truth. If the heart is heavier then the feather, then to soul gets sent into darkness. If it weighs the same, the person get brought before Osiris to recite a spell infront of the god Osiris, to finally be let into the afterlife."
"One is shrines for gods. We build special shrines in honor of the gods. Shrines are where people could go in and make offerings to the gods, such as valuable items or precious jewels. There are myths that some of our temples and pyramids, were once shrines. But no one alive is here to tell the story."
" Pharoahs and gods crowns originally show where they came from. Our artists and sculptors try to make sure the most attention would be given to the heads of the people they were drawing, with the beautiful colorful crowns with the bright pretty colors."
I then had one more itching question, which was why and how were pyraminds built, and how does it connect to their beleif system? It was time to be brave, so I got permmision to stand upon their pharoah, and ask him this question. This was his response,
"Pyramids were built for the reason that us pharoahs need a place for our soul to live and our body to rest after we die. They are protected, because when pharoahs die they are buried with their special valuable items, that some people would like to get their hands on. And they were built by mixing materials and water from the Nile to create clay, we let the clay dry to create many bricks, and built our pyramids that way."
How to Make a Mummy
1. Embalming: First they embalm the body with good smelling palm wine, then rinse it with water from the Nile.
2.Next, one of the men make a cut in the body and take out all internal organs but the heart, so they don't rot the body. They use a long hook to pull the brain out through the nose.
3.Next the body is covered, and stuffed with Natron, so it'll dry out.
4. After 40 days the body is washed with water from the Nile, then covered with oil to keep the body, "elastic".
5. The internal organs are then wrapped in linen and returned back to the body, then the body is stuffed with materials such as sawdust, leaves and linen, to make it look lifelike.
6.Wrapping: They then wrap the mummy with linen, starting with the head and the neck, then the toes and fingers are individually wrapped.
7. They place amulets between the layers of wrapping to protect the body as it's traveling through the underworld.
Fun Fact: As the mummy is being wrapped a priest spells out words, these words are meant to help the person with the journey through the afterlife.
This is the Book of the Dead. This was found, and was one of the most important Egyptian archeological discoveries to help education about the afterlife. This book contains hundreds of spells, to which be used in the afterlife
The book of the dead was filled with words and spells to help with the journey through the afterlife. Not one of the scrolls were the same as a different scroll. One of the things the book of the dead contains is information about the 42 judges in the judging hall, and what to say to them to give you a better chance to be allowed in the afterlife. The spells were only to be used in the afterlife, and would have no meaning to be used in normal life.
Major Developments
Amenhotep
Major Development 1: Mummification
Major Development 2: Pyramids
Now, I'm in the time of Amenhotep IV, and I have some questions for her, involving developments. Heres what happened:
"Hello your majesty, I would like to ask a few questions on your behalf to help me with something," I asked and I was able to ask a few questions.
Q: What major change, to Egypt, did you make? What effect did it have on your civilization?
A:I built a new temple to worship our new sun god, Aten. I also built a new city called, Horizon of Aten to worship our son god Aten. Me and my wife Neferiti worship one god, and one god only. And thats Aten, other gods are taken out of our veiw. I guess our civilization doesn't like the new changes because they're so used to lots of gods to worship and to bhe able to see what they look like, but they'll just have to get used to it.
Q:Why should the Middle Kingdom, or sorry, your time be called the Golden Age?
A:Because we defeated the Hyksos, proving we're better and stronger than them, and we built a new capitol proving our accomplishments, and becoming rich with the goods we took from the Hyksos, so we should definetly be called the Golden Age. Hey thats a good idea! WRITE THAT DOWN SCRIBES!!!!
Q:Why can the exchange of envoys be considered a major development in Egypt?
A: Because we can get materials we dont see very often in Egypt, for example wool, wood, dye, our favorite color dye is purple but we accept any other colors too, so we have goods that you can find in Egypt, and goods you cant find in Egypt making us stronger!
Q: How are pyramids built? How did you use math and technology?
A: We needed to move our massive stone blocks from the Nile to the workspace, so we wet the sand in front of the contraption we use to push the blocks to create friction so the blocks go faster. We use math by measuring the amount of blocks needed and how big the blocks have to be.
Cedar Sled: Used to push heavy building blocks from the Nile River. Without this invention pyramids may not have been able to be built, so this invention was very useful to Egyptian developments.
© Copyright Dieter Arnold, Building in Egypt, p. 276
By:Alice Zborovskiy
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