In Beliefs About the Afterlife you saw that the dead needed a body to live on. Mummification was the careful work of keeping that body whole. This unit describes it plainly and calmly, as Egyptians saw it: an act of care for someone they loved.
Key idea
Why it works
How it began
In the Predynastic Period, people were buried in shallow pits in the desert sand. The hot, dry sand dried the bodies quickly, and some survive today, like the man from Gebelein in the British Museum, more than five thousand years old. Egyptians who saw such remains could see that a body could last. Later, when bodies were placed in coffins and tombs away from the sand, they no longer dried by themselves, and people developed ways to preserve them on purpose. By the 4th Dynasty, embalmers were already removing and storing internal organs: the oldest known stored organs belonged to Queen Hetepheres I, the mother of Khufu.
Who was mummified?
Full mummification took weeks of skilled work and costly materials. The Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt in the 5th century BC, describes three grades of treatment at different prices. Kings, officials and their families had the best; many ordinary people had simpler preparation, or were buried in the sand as their ancestors had been. Animals were mummified too, as pets and as offerings to gods.
Worked example: Why the desert mattered
- They were buried in hot, dry sand.
- The sand drew water from the body quickly.
- Without water, the body did not decay.
Answer: The dry sand preserved them naturally.
Worked example: Grades of care
- Herodotus says there were three grades of treatment, at different prices.
- A family could choose a simpler, cheaper one.
- Many people had simple burials, but still with care and grave goods.
Answer: A cheaper grade, or a simpler burial.
Common mistake