Burial Rituals of Ancient Egypt

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the Egyptian funerary rituals and equipment, which eventually became the most elaborate the world has ever known. The author states that Egyptians began the art of embalming in the very earliest dynastic times because the body had to remain intact to grant to the dead the illusion of life. The paper presents in detail the many processes of embalming.

From the Paper:

"The Predynastic Cultures of Ancient Egypt, for example, were relatively simple in their material possessions, including their grave goods, although these cultures seemed to enjoy a substantial degree of prosperity compared to the peoples around them and a relatively constant level of prosperity. As early as about 4000 B.C., some people were being buried with a relatively high number of grave goods compared to others, indicating that a complex society with a number of different social ranks had already evolved and was established well enough for people to want it to be reflected through eternity. The bodies of this time do not bear the elaborate preparations that they would by the New Kingdom thousands of years later. But, they do bear signs of an attempt to preserve them against the elements, including the wrapping of the body in cloth and at least sometimes the treating of the body with preservative chemicals sometimes by simply immersing or coating the body with these chemicals, sometimes by infusing the cloth wrappings with these chemicals. Except for the simplicity of this treatment, it resembles in essential ways later mummification techniques."

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