Looking back Ancient Egypt

How mummies were made

Who hasn't heard of Egypt and its famous pyramids, which are considered to be one of the wonders of the world? It is one of the great civilizations that developed along the River Nile, in North Africa over 5,000 years ago, as Upper and Lower Egypt.

It was King Menes who united the two kingdoms in 3100 BC and made it into the powerful empire it turned out to be. The Egyptian Empire lasted until 30 BC, when it finally fell to the Romans. The remains of tombs, written records and wall paintings have revealed to us today, what this great civilization was like in the ancient days.

Egypt was a rich empire ruled by kings who were called pharaohs. They were worshipped and treated like gods by the people. The royal family always lived in luxury, waited on by hundreds of servants.

History records that the ancient Egyptians worshipped many gods and strongly believed in life after death. As they believed in afterlife, the Egyptians embalmed (preserved) the bodies of their dead. Rich Egyptians were buried with everything they would need in the afterlife such as food, clothes, jewellery and even models of servants.

Lucky amulets were also often placed among the bandages in which the body was wrapped, to ward off evil spirits.

Some of the magical amulets that were placed were the ankh which symbolises life, djed (strength and stability), tet (for protection of the limbs) and scarab (rebirth). As these tombs contained lots of treasure, they were often broken into and plundered by robbers.

Most of the great pharaohs' tombs were robbed long ago. However, in 1922, archaeologists made one of the world's greatest discoveries. They found the tomb of the young Tutankhamun, who was only 18 years of age when he died. His tomb was untouched and contained priceless treasures, including his mummy and the fabulous golden face mask.

Today, we'll check out some interesting facts about mummies and how they were made ...

Who was mummified?

A mummy is a dead body that has been preserved. The people who made them were called embalmers. Making

 a mummy was not an easy task. It was also very expensive and so, only the royal family, top officials and priests who were very powerful helping the people with sacred work, were mummified. Some animals too such as cats, dogs, crocodiles and baboons that represented gods and goddesses were also mummified sometimes.

Cats for example, represented the goddess Bastet and were held in high esteem. But, the poor people who could not afford to be mummified were buried in simple coffins made out of reed, or just in holes in the sand.

How was a body preserved?

You must be aware that even today, dead bodies are being embalmed in funeral parlours. When embalming a body, the soft body parts - the organs inside have to be invariably removed. Even in ancient times, this was done. The Egyptian embalmers too cut opened the bodies and removed these organs. But, instead of throwing them away like in the present day, they dried and placed them in vessels called canopic jars.

It had taken 70 days to complete the embalming of a body and several embalmers had been involved in the process, which was carried out in the embalming shop called the per nefer. The chief embalmer, a priest, was known as the hery seshta.

The first step in this process was removing the soft parts of the body - that means all the internal organs. In

order to do this, an incision had to be made on the left side of the abdomen.

However, as this act of cutting open a dead body was considered a desecration, the embalmer who did it was cursed and stoned by the others present. But it was done as a symbolic part of the process and not with the intention of hurting the embalmer.

As the ancient Egyptian believed that body parts magically reunited with the body in afterlife, as we mentioned before, certain body parts were preserved.

The parts that were dried and placed in canopic jars were the stomach, intestines, liver and lungs.

The stoppers of these four special jars were shaped like the heads of the four sons of God Horus; Duamutef who had a head of a jackal was given in charge of the stomach, Qebehsenut, the falcon-headed son was entrusted with the intestines, Hapi, the baboon-headed son was given in charge of the lungs and Imseti, the human-headed son was entrusted with the liver. Well, what about the heart and the brain?There is no mention of the heart being preserved.

The brain too was removed by pulling it out through the nostrils or nasal cavities using a hooked knife. But, as the embalmers did not think the brain was important, they just threw it away without preserving it in jars.

In fact, they thought it was there to produce snut only! As they didn't consider the brain important, they treated it in a rough manner, even when removing it. They used a sharp instrument and first separated the bone from the brain.

Then using a long hook, they virtually liquidified the brain by stirring it up inside the cavity. Then, the body was

 turned upside down by the embalmer so that the brain could ooze out from the nasal cavities. The body was then washed with wine (the alcohol in it served as antiseptic to kill bacteria).

The empty spaces in the body were filled with rags and sawdust to retain the original shape of the body, and stitched up. The body was then covered in a kind of salt called natron, which dried it out, for 40 days.

After the body dried out, following the removal of bodyparts it was rubbed with various kinds of sacred oil to soften the skin which was by now shruken, leathery and wrinkled. The body was also rubbed with spices. Then, it was wrapped in bandages as much as five kilometres long! The assistants who bandaged the body were known as wetyu.

Even though initially no identification was given on the bandaged body, the practice of writing the name at the ends of the bandage was introduced at some period of time.

That is how archaeologists and scientists are able to identify some of the mummies (even without death masks), discovered today.

Death masks and coffins

Once the mummy was complete, a death mask was placed over the mummy's face. A death mask was the portrait of the dead person. It was placed over the face, so that the soul, also called the ka would be able to recognise its body. Most often, these death masks were made of painted wood. However, most pharaohs had death masks turned out of beaten gold.

The mummy was then placed in a coffin which was in turn placed in one or two other coffins known as nests. Each of these coffins (which would be at least three) were painted with hieroglyphs (word pictures), pictures of gods, spells to keep away evil spirits and pictures of the person's life. These were painted by specialised coffin painters.

Some of the early coffins were in the shape of boxes, somewhat similar to those used today. Later, they took the shape of the human body and were known as mummie form coffins. Sometimes the mummies were placed in what was called sarcophagi which were large coffins made of stone or gold. Along with these coffins or the sarcophagi .

Six small statues known as shabtis too were placed in the tombs which were also full of treasure.

Final prayers

The priest said final prayers over the body, but he always wore a mask to look like Anubis, the jackal god, who

 was the god of the dead. At the tomb, the priest conducted what is known as the 'Opening of the mouth' ceremony. The priest did this, holding on to the mummy's body because the ceremony was held with the intention of giving the dead person the power to eat, move and breathe during afterlife.

Many interesting discoveries of mummies and ancient tombs are being made by archaeologists, during excavations in Egypt all the time. Try to learn as much as you can from these interesting discoveries about mummies and the great Egyptian civilization which has given so much to the modern world.