History Presentation - The 3rd (the last)

Relate Ancient Egypt and Mummies

People usually introduce Ancient Egypt as complicated and mysterious place. There are few things that we can talk about Ancient Egypt. Mummification, ancient religion, pharaoh, pyramids or temples. Well, today, I am going to present the relationship between mummification and early religious beliefs that ancient Egyptians had. I have few main points to discuss about this topic which are

1-    Back ground information about Egyptian religion

2-    Early beliefs

3-    Development of national religion adding the role of king and major cults

4-    The life after death which also shows

5-    Why Egyptians made mummies before

6-    Who were the mummies

7-    Studies of mummification today

Background information about the religion

Egyptian’s religion means the religious beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of Egypt. Most information about Ancient Egypt is usually weak because it has been thousands of years as the new kingdom of ancient Egypt started. Only certain parts of Egyptian religious life are known. What we do mostly know about is that those religious beliefs of the Egyptians are riddled with confusions. Many gods and goddesses seem pretty complicated. That time, contradictory myths explained the creation of world, usually the natural phenomena. (Phenomena means unique or significant things happened in Earth) Usually, people guess or use theories to know about ancient Egypt. Mostly, I’m going to talk about gods, afterlife and what beliefs that citizens had.

A total amount 70 million mummies were made in 3000 years. By the 4^th century as they became Christians, they no longer worked for the arts and science of making mummies. The best preserved mummies are those pharaohs and relatives. Those are protected from harms by the effort and manners people had made.

Early beliefs

Probably the oldest form of religious worship in Egypt was animal worship. In the early days, people respected their own particular gods who were usually represented as particular animals. Sometimes a whole species of animal was respected as cats. Or individual animals of certain types were respected. As Egyptian civilization advanced, gods were humanized. Many were represented with human bodies and other human characteristics and attributes. We don’t precisely know how or why certain animals became associated with certain gods. But it’s surely known that the animal gods varies. Sometimes those gods were the combination of various animals.

Egyptians had also theories about Earth. They believed the Earth was a flat disk. They thought there might be some spiritual gods which explain the creation of world.

Development of national religion

At the end of the ancient period which was about 2300 BC, when the new state created, there were big changed about the gods and their myths. Changes in political power of various localities also made specific systems in the position of gods. Egyptian religion was known for its reunion and union of conflicting beliefs and ideas. For example, during the period of Inkhaton, who believed that the gods should be systemically monotheistic, changed the belief that most people thought for.

Related, what duties or responsibilities kings had to bring?

Experts have concluded that there was no close personal life between the individual Egyptians and the gods. This shows the gods showed formal relationship. To humans, connection was indirect that king communicated those points. There were no established books as the Bible or the Quran. King brought important responsibility and capability to lead people by human wisdom and trust in their belief for goddess. It was the duty of kings to manage and administrate the law. As Egypt flourished, people started to develop the concept for spiritual aspects. This was the beginning to build religious building as temples.

Those also brought what we call as ‘cults’ which means the system of religion believe and practice. The most important were the cults of Osiris and Ra. Osiris was also important as king and had the duty to judge the dead. This protected every human which show the relationship between people. Legends related with him pretty much expressed the victory on goods over evil. Ra had the symbol for pyramids which became as the monumental tombs of the Egyptian kings. Most cults centered on the worship of an image of spiritual gods, being purified, greeted and praised. The numerous festivals allowed more direct interaction between people and the gods. Those festivals and meetings are painted and it’s saved in the British museum.

- Osiris (one of the major cults)

Life after the death

In the funerary cults, the monument text provided the facts that we know about afterlife that Egyptians thought for. The dead were provided with food, weapons and drink. Tombs were often visited by their families. Ancient Egyptians strongly believed that if they die, they might be sent to somewhere what they think as relief. It was still complex. It shows that Egyptians wanted the infinite life or nature. The two most important that we should know is ba and ka.

Ka was the double detached and separated part of a person that leads to the individual fortune. When people die, they were said to join Ka. Ba was maybe the more important one. Ba was usually a soul of a person. Akh was the transformation of some dead into other objects. They thought for the universe or stars rhythm are related with the existence of Akh.

So, the ancient Egyptians believed the death was the physical end in life. But also believed that through death, one could live eternal life free. This was what Osiris said and what king communicated for.

Why Egyptians did made mummies

Related to the previous content, afterlife, this starts with that Egyptians believed in afterlife that humans souls journey together when people live. They thought it’s important the dead bodies should be preserved for the next life. Mummies were the solution for this.

So you see that the earlier beliefs and the religion strongly effected the mummification. It has been told that thousands of animal mummies were made and a lot more mummies were made for humans in Egypt that time.

The methods of examining, preserving or treating the dead body is called as ‘mummification’. To have basis, Egyptians removed all moisture from the body, leaving only a dried form that would not decay. It was important in their religion to preserve the dead body as manner as possible. So, it seems successful that we can view the mummified the bodies of Egyptian times which were pretty old. 

Mummification was practiced through out most early Egyptian history. The earliest mummies from the prehistoric times were probably accidental. By dry sand and air preserved some bodies in the shallow begun to be mummified and the practice continued and developed for more than 2000 years.

Who were the mummies

After death, the pharaohs of Egypt usually were mummified and buried in elaborate tombs. Members of the officials and loyalties were also treated as the same. It was rare to mummify the common people, usually because of the cost.

As I said before, some animals were also buried. Developed mummification led increased number producing the mummies.

The studies of mummies today

Ancient writers, modern scientists and the mummies themselves all helped us to understand better about the mummification progress and culture in which existed.

We use scientific technologies to examine those. For example, by studying with x –rays, experts are learning more about diseases suffered by the Egyptians and their medical care for this.

By those examines that are continuous this days, we can find out the relationship in the royal line, Egyptian kings and few points about their skulls.