PREPARING FOR THE AFTERLIFE

The Egyptian people believed in an afterlife. Afterlife means life after death. Their belief was so strong and so important to them that a lot of preparation was made for death and burials. Building pyramids was just one of the things that they did to get prepared.

Another part was to prepare the body itself. Before an Egyptian person's body could be placed in a pyramid or any other tomb, the body would have to be prepared for the afterlife.

The Egyptians believed that without a body a person's could not eat, drink dance or enjoy the other nice things that afterlife has. If the body decayed, the spirit would die as well. So the Egyptian people started embalming and treating the body so that it would not decay. The process of embalming turned the body into a mummy .

Before the body can be made into a mummy the persons brains have to be taken out from his or her nostril, which means that the persons nose has to taken out. The persons intestines also have to be taken out.

Once the mummy is prepared it was placed in the tomb with some of the things that were used in the afterlife. Some of these things were things they used every day like games, clothes, and hand mirrors. Some tombs even had mummies of cats and dogs, and carved statues of servants. On the walls of the tombs there were paintings of scenes from the life of the dead person.

Most of things and paintings were found in the tombs of the royal family or very rich families. But even the common people were buried with some of their favourite belongings.

According to the Egyptian belief, the objects and the paintings in the tomb were supposed to help to make sure the person would be happy in the afterlife. The Egyptian people loved life this world. Since they believed that that life in the afterlife would be much like their normal life, they wanted to be buried with the things that they would need.

After a mummy was placed in its tomb, the priest recited prayers or cast magic spells. They called the gods and told them to help the person on the journey from this to the next.

Follow this fascinating story of one mummy's journey from Egypt to America. Her name was Ti Ameny Net .

Read about what one class did with Chicken Mummies.