Egyptian Afterlife and Culture

By Ryan Wagner

Period: 1-9

12/5/07

Egyptian Presentation Outline• Spirituality

– Ma’at– 5 Parts of a person

• Afterlife – Can be attained– Extra special for pharaoh– Need Mummification

• Mummification – History– Vocabulary– Why?

• Religion-Polytheismhttp://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/home.html-Brief overview of pantheon

Spirituality

• Ma’at = is both a goddess and an “order”

The word means order in the universe, without which all things would be destroyed. Job of pharaoh is to uphold this balance by being just and upholding laws.

Ma’at

• All gods deferred to her

• Every time something was judged “Ma’at was there”

• Her feather was used in the “Weighing of the Heart”

Spirituality

• Egyptians believed that the Soul was split into five parts

• Ka

• Ba

• Ib

• Ren

• Shewt

Ib

• Heart

• Thought to be more important than brain (emotion, thought, feeling run through it)

• Key to afterlife

• Weighed against feather of Maat

• If heavier then heart fed to Ammit and body fed to Seth the evil god of Underworld

Weighing of the Heart

Ka

• Life force• Made by Creator God Khnum on his pottery

wheel• Represented by touchdown arms in

hieroglyphics• What left the body when you died • Your twin with touchdown arms on your head• Must be maintained with food and drink• Make offerings and the spirit of the food and

drink will be consumed by ka

Ka

Ba

• Soul/personality

• Human headed bird flying out of the pyramid to join with the Ka

• What makes someone unique

• Must journey from the tomb every day and find the ka

• Must return to body at night in the tomb

Ba

Ren

• Name

• Written and spoken

• Must not be lost

• Attached to individual from birth

• Wrote it all over walls, monuments, statues so spirit could find physical body

Ren

Shewt

• Shadow – small human figure painted completely black

• An entity with great power and capable of great speed

• Must be protected

• Pharaoh paintings often seen in shade or under palm leaf or fan

Shewt

Akh

• Hieroglyph – crested ibis

• Fully resurrected spirit

• Able to leave tomb and make good and bad things happen in everyday life

• Can go to “heaven” = Land of Reeds

Akh

Afterlife

• At first only possible for Pharaoh

• Later same practices adopted for all classes

• Priests perform ceremonies and write spells for protection both in temple and on sarcophagus

Afterlife

• “opening of the mouth ceremony” – performed by priest to restore physical abilities in death, and separate the ba from its attachment to the body

• Egyptians believe afterlife is similar to the God of the Dead, Osiris

Afterlife

• He does this each day and while in the Underworld he has to fight a giant monster sent by his enemy Seth.

• Similar to that story, the ba must rise each day and look for the ka, and then the ba must return to the body each day and protect it

Mummification

• Why?• History – used to bury dead in sand but decayed• Used to wrap and bury in sand but decayed• Wrapped Pharaoh for two reasons

– He was Osiris in the flesh– He would need to be physically recognizable by any

parts of his spirit• Ba to return each night to protect• Ka to return to in order to receive food, drink, offerings, etc.

Mummification

• Hery seshta – takes role of Anubis and is in charge of mummification, might even wear mask

• Hery heb – reads spells during each part

• Wetyw – do all the removals, bandaging, ointments, etc.

Mummificaiton

• Body taken two places– Place of purification – washed using natron

salts, palm wine, and nile water– Place of beauty – mummification takes place

**All materials used in the process are buried along with the body!

Mummification

Procedures

1. Internal (soft and wet) organs removed, dried, wrapped, placed into canopic jars

2. Sometimes removed brain by chiseling through nasal cavity and using hooked device to pull out pieces at a time

3. Jars have heads of four sons of Horus = Hapy - lungs, Imsety - Liver, Duamutef - stomach, and Qebehsenuef - intestines

Procedures Continued

4. Liver, lungs, stomach, intestines – later Egypt dehydrated and wrapped in linen – then stuffed back in to body!

5. Body stuffed with things like leaves, saw dust, and linen to maek it appear life-like

6. Body rubbed in natron and in some instances stuffed with it – must dry it out – Embalming

7. Left for forty days to dry

Procedures Continued

8. Temporary stuffing removed

9. Body cavity re-stuffed and packed out with clean bags of natron, resin soaked bandages, and lots of perfumes and ointments.

Procedures Continued

4. Whole body coated in resin/oils to keep skin elastic

5. Sometimes cosmetics added to make more life-like

Procedures Continued

• 7. Body completely bandaged up – linen – start at head, do each limb and torso separately

• Priest reads scripts during wrapping• 8. Amulets and valuables placed in appropriate

places between bandages according to Book of the Dead (Spell encyclopedia) – protection and good luck and balance

Procedures Continued

• Arms and legs tied together and scroll with protective spells from Book of Dead placed in hands

• Bandaging would take around 15 days – add a couple of layers and resins each day

Procedures Continued

• Cloth wrapped around body and picture of god Osiris is drawn on

• Large colored cloth is placed around body and made snug by horizontal and diagonal colored linen strips

Funerary mask/Death mask placed on head to symbolize going into another state of existence – see King Tut

Procedures Continued

• Total process took around 70 days

• Family mourns – Opening of the Mouth Ceremony performed – first food and drink offering

• Placed into two wooden coffins

• Placed into Stone Sarcophagus with offerings and valuables to use in afterlife

Opening of the Mouth Ceremony

Gods and Goddesseshttp://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/story/main.html

• Everything started out with Nun, the waters of Chaos.

• The first thing to rise out of the waters was Ben-Ben, a mound of earth

• Atum, the first of the gods, appeared on Ben-Ben

• He spat out Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture)

Gods and Goddesses

• These two children had two chidren of their own: Nut, goddess of the sky, and Geb, god of the earth

• They had four children – Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Seth

Gods and Goddesses

• Osiris and Isis became partners and so did Seth and Nephthys

• Osiris became king of the earth; Seth got jealous, he ended up killing Osiris once, and then a second time. Both times Isis brought Osirius back to life with the help of magic and the jackal head god Anubis.

Gods and Goddesses

• Isis was able to bring Osiris back to life in a way again, but he was now god of the Underworld

• His son, Horus, avenged his father by defeating Seth

• Seth became evil god of the netherworld/hell, Horus was god of the Earth and Living, and Osiris was god of the Dead and Underworld

Gods and Goddesses

• The Pharaoh is Horus during life and Osiris at death

• The dead pharaoh must make the journey to the underworld with the sun at night, and fight Seth and his minions

• By day the dead pharaoh rises with the sun

Bibliography

• http://touregypt.net/godsofegypt/maat.htm 12/4/07.• http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/home.html 12/4/07.• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_soul 12/4/07• http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ka.htm 12/4/07• http://library.thinkquest.org/J002037F/ba_and_ka.htm• http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/

themestream/egypt_soul.html• http://www.neferchichi.com/mummies.html