Egyptian Afterlife Essay, Research Paper

Egyptian View on Afterlife

Most of the Egyptian life was preparing for their afterlife. This resulted in the pyramids and other great tombs for the Pharaohs and other nobility.

The Egyptians also believed the bodies of the dead had to be preserved if the Ka (indestructible essence) of the person were to live on. The manner in which they preserved these bodies is called mummification.

To embalm the mummy the Egyptians first had to remove the brain. They did this through either the nose or from behind the eye. They through the brain away because they didn t know what it was used for. Next they would fill the empty scull with Narton (a salty chemical found on the shores near Cairo) and plaster. Soon after they would cut open the body and remove the lungs, liver, intestines, and stomach and put them in canopic jars adding natron to seal them. Where the stomach was they would add myrrh and natron and fill the rest of the body up with linen rags. They would then sew the body up leaving only the heart inside (the heart was to be weighed later when the person reached the afterlife). Next they would place the body in natron for seventy days and then wrap the body from head to toe in fine linen cloth.

Inside most Egyptian pyramids they often kept food, jewelry, cosmetics, clothing, gold, and statues. They also kept likeness of themselves inside their tombs to house their Ka incase something happened to their body. Many of the statues they had were of workers to serve the pharaoh in the afterlife.

The afterlife of the Egyptians was a trying, complicated place. They believed they would have to pass through a very dangerous place that contained monsters, boiling lakes, fires, and poisonous snakes. They believed these evils could be overcome with spells, which they often left in or near their coffin (exp. Book of the Dead). If they overcame these perils they would reach the gates of Yaru (the afterlife) where their greatest test awaited. In the Hall of Two Truths the weighing of the heart took place. The heart, the only organ left in their body, was placed on one side of a balance and on the other side the Feather of Truth was placed. The Feather of Truth held all of the sins of there past life. The three great gods, Osiris, Anubis, and Thoth decided the result of the weighing. If you passed you were allowed to enter the gates of Yaru, but if you failed you heart was consumed by the devourer to be gone forever.

With Egypt s many burial rituals, they had and elaborate system of beliefs to go with them. The afterlife was very important to every aspect of their mortal life, maybe even more important than their mortal life.