mother
During the pre-dynasty, Egyptians dug shallow pits in the desert and buried their relatives. The hot and dry sand will quickly absorb the water of the corpse and form a natural mummy. Later, the Egyptians began to build tombs, but they lost their natural drying effect. Egyptian scholars generally believe that this is the reason why ancient Egyptians began to try to preserve corpses artificially.
At the end of the first dynasty or the pre-dynasty, there were some graves, and the bodies were partially wrapped in linen and coated with turpentine. This is the origin of mummies. Mummies made by actually taking out internal organs first appeared in the Fifth Dynasty (2494-2345 BC) during the ancient kingdom. After continuous trial and improvement, the complete mummification technology has matured in the New Kingdom period.
Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, described mummification when he visited Egypt in the fifth century BC. At that time, there were three different procedures for mummification, and the prices were different (the poor could not even afford the cheapest one). Modern Egyptian scientists and doctors have cooperated in a lot of dissection and computerized tomography of mummies, and now our understanding of mummification technology is more complete than that recorded by Herodotus.
The most advanced method is roughly as follows: first, take the brain out of the nasal cavity with a metal hook, and then fill the brain cavity with rosin oil. Then cut the abdomen with an obsidian or flint blade, take out the internal organs such as lung, liver, stomach and intestine (the heart usually stays in the body, but sometimes it is taken out for treatment), wash the body cavity with palm wine, and fill it with linen, ground spices and sodium carbonate powder. Finally, the whole body is covered with sodium carbonate powder. The internal organs were also dried with sodium carbonate powder. This process takes about 40 days.
After the body is dried, take out the filling material in the body (it can't be thrown away and buried together), smear the body cavity with turpentine and fill it with clean linen and sawdust. If the heart is removed, put it back in the chest at this time. The body surface is coated with turpentine and wrapped in linen. Amulets are usually placed in some parts of the body and wrapped in linen. Since the Middle Kingdom, mummies have been masked (with linen or papyrus as the embryo, plastered with plaster and painted with pigment) to avoid mistaking others when they are pulled back (Figure 1). It may take hundreds of meters of linen to make a mummy. This stage takes about 30 days.
Egyptians have long known that the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines rot earlier than the body and need special treatment. From the early days of the Middle Kingdom, the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines were dried and put in four jars. At the same time, these four jars are marked as protected by four sons of Horus (please refer to the last newsletter for the myth of Horus).
In the 19 dynasty of the new kingdom, the lids of the four jars became the heads representing Horus's four sons, baboon heads, wolf heads and eagle heads. Since the third transition period, the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines are often wrapped in linen after drying and put back into the abdominal cavity or between the legs. The clay pots molded by Horus' four sons are still placed in coffins or graves, but the meaning of etiquette is greater than the real meaning.
The reason why the internal organs are treated so carefully is because a whole corpse is a necessary condition for eternal life. In the movie Legend of Ghosts and Gods, the mummy was anxious to get back four clay pots, which was the reason.
coffin
Coffin is a very important part of funeral in ancient Egypt. Coffins not only protect the integrity of mummies, but also protect the dead and souls to worship Osiris safely.
During the pre-dynasty, Egyptians dug shallow pits in the desert and buried their relatives. At that time, no coffin was used, and it was buried directly on the side of the arc. In the last years of the former dynasty, there were tombs with mud bricks as walls and wooden pillars as tops, with straw mats and wicker baskets to protect the bodies, and occasionally there were simple wooden coffins and pottery coffins. But in ancient times, coffins gradually became common. The tombs of nobles or senior officials at that time have not been found so far. Ordinary people's coffins are just simple wooden boxes or even baskets tied with reeds. The coffin is short, and it is still buried in an arc way.
In the period of entering the ancient kingdom, the method of straight long coffin burial gradually became common, but the short coffin bending burial continued until the late ancient kingdom. Long coffins come in two forms. One is an arched coffin, symbolizing the sky. The other is a flat-topped coffin cover. In addition to wooden coffins, nobles or senior officials sometimes have sarcophagus. Fake doors are usually carved or painted on coffins so that the dead can get in and out. Flat-topped wooden coffins are generally carved or painted with eye lines at the head position, so that the deceased can see the rising of the sun (the head of the deceased faces north and east when buried) (Figure 2).
During the Middle Kingdom period, the carving or depiction of the inside and outside of the coffin became more and more complicated, which often presented the epitome of the whole mausoleum. The most striking feature is the "coffin inscription" carved on the coffin, which evolved from the "pyramid inscription" of the ancient kingdom. The theme of "writing coffins" is nothing more than that the dead get eternal life under the protection of the gods.
Humanoid coffins that appeared in the Middle Kingdom became more common in the New Kingdom. The appearance of humanoid coffin changed the coffin from a symbol of the grave to a symbol of the dead. Its shape imitates the mummy of Osiris in myth, and its religious significance may be that in case the mummy decays, the human coffin can be used as the representative of the dead. Like the ancient kingdom, nobles and senior officials in the new kingdom sometimes put wooden coffins in the sarcophagus. However, the shape of the sarcophagus gradually changed from a traditional square coffin to a humanoid coffin. The average person may also have an outer coffin, but it is mostly made of wood.
From the New Kingdom to the Roman rule, the coffin's shape, painting style and mummy's decoration have undergone many changes. After the 4th century AD, due to the introduction of Christianity into Egypt, the traditional funeral beliefs in Egypt gradually disappeared. Modern people have left many unsolved mysteries and fascinating mysteries.