Week 6 History Essay

        Through the past few weeks, I have been studying Egypt, as in Egyptian geography, culture, daily life, dynasties, and more. In my last essay about Egypt, I will talk about what they believed about the afterlife. I will also tell you about the mummification process.

          First, the Egyptians believed in having another life after you are dead. This is called the “afterlife”. After the dead person was in their tomb, the priests would fill the tomb with food, furniture, and other things that they thought the spirits might need. There are multiple ways that you could keep the now dead person remembered. One way was to speak that person’s name. If you did, that person’s spirit will grow stronger; if you didn’t, that person will be “gone” permanently.

          After being mummified, which I will talk about in a minute, the body will let two spirits out of it. The spirits are called “ka” and “ba”. Both spirits could leave the body in different forms, but they both had to come back. Ka was a spirit double of the person. It is said that ka looked like a shadow when it left the body, and it had to come back at night, but we are not exactly sure why. Ba, on the other hand, was the life force of the person. However, unlike ka, ba was required to stay close to the mummy.

           The mummification process took about 40-80 days, and it was done differently depending on what the dead person’s family could afford, however, I will only do the rich way. First, the brain was removed, through the nose, and discarded. The brain was thought to be unimportant and useless. Next, were the other organs, which were removed carefully by cutting open the side of the body. The other organs were put in special jars, called canopic jars. Next, the body is preserved in natron powder to remove moisture for about seventy days. After that, the body is washed off, stuffed with crushed myrrh, cassia, and other herbs, and sewn back together. The body is then wrapped completely in linen muslin, smearing it with gum, which is what the Egyptians used instead of glue. The mummy returned to the family and is put is a man-sized, wooden container, and the proses is complete.

          I love learning about Ancient Egypt, so I loved writing this essay. I find it interesting to learn about how people thought and did things at different times in other parts of the world. Altogether, I liked this topic, and I cannot wait to see what I will be learning and writing about next week.