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Burial Practices

Burial Practices

David Salinas

What did they have to do in order to prepare the dead person’s spirit/ ka to enjoy the afterlife?

  • person’s body was prepared in a certain way
  • body can’t decay/ fall apart
  • egyptians developed process (embalming)

What are the several steps to preserving a dead body?

  • priests remove all organs that are inside the body except heart
  • placed organs in pottery or limestone container (canopic jar)
  • removed the brain by hooking it through the nostrils
  • put the body in wooden box and covered it with salt (natron-dries body)
  • In 40 days, priests washed, oiled, and wrapped body in several hundred yards of fabric
  • sometimes spread black, gooey substance (momia) over body

What did the Ancient Egyptians do after burying the dead body?

  • left food, drink, gold, jewelry, clothes, games, and mirrors) with the bodies
  • had different burial ceremonies for poor and wealthier people
  • Poor- usually not embalmed, most wrapped in discarded clothing, buried ground
  • Poor who could afford it- simple funeral ceremony, laid in plain wooden box- buried in sand or cave
  • Wealthy- held more elaborate ceremonies, buried their dead in tombs
  • Pharaohs- priests laid body in coffin- placed in large stone container (sarcophagus,) surrounded with treasures
  • Pharaohs in early times- buried in pyramids
  • Pharaohs later- buried in temples/secret locations to prevent people from breaking into sites to steal treasures

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