Mummification

• Egyptians believed you passed into the afterlife with possessions and your body and would be used again

• also needed the soul to be able to recognize the body –keep it preserved

Who was mummified?

• pharaohs, priests, and nobles,

• also pets, especially cats

The Process• -embalmers—who

prepared the body• usually took about 70

days, drying out process• priests performed

ceremony—high priest wore an Anubis mask

• as few cuts in body as possible—“the cutter” was chased out

Step 1• cut made under ribs to pull out stomach,

lungs, liver, intestines, heart left for afterlife ritual weighing of the heart

Step 2

• organs placed in canopic jars and spells placed on them to protect organs for joining the body later—gods for each jar

Step 3

• brain pulled out with a hook through the nostrils and trashed

Steps 4-5

• body filled with and covered with natron (salt) to dry out

• after completely dry, at least 30 days, body is given sponge bath and cleaned

Steps 6-7

• body packed with cloth to help shape, covered with oils, spices and perfumes

• body is wrapped in many layers of linen cloth, sometimes fingers and toes done one at time,

• -jewels, amulets place in layers and death mask over head

During the Process• In the meantime,

workers and artists made coffin or sarcoughagus

• art, spells and stories on the outside, sometimes several within each other

• possessions, art, furniture, boat, pets, and instructions for journey included in the tomb, Book of the Dead—spells and instructions