The ancient
Egyptians believed that dead bodies had to be carefully preserved
so that their owners could use them in the afterlife. They used a
special method called mummification. Normally only pharaohs and
wealthy people were mummified as it was an expensive, time
consuming process.
1.
First you would wash him or her and take out the liver, stomach,
intestines and lungs. Then you would place them in four canopic
jars. The heart was left in because they thought it was needed in
the afterlife. A brain hook was used to scrape out your brain
through the nostrils.
2.
Then you would cover them in a salt called natron that would make
the body dry. After forty days they would remove the natron and
they would cover you in linen and sawdust and make-up.
3.
Over the next fifteen days the body was covered in bandages.
Amulets were put with the bandages and linen. These were to
protect the person in the afterlife.
4. Finally they would put you in four or five layers of sarcophagus’s. The sarcophagus is decorated in magic spells and pictures of gods.
One
day a myth was told about a king called Osiris. One time his
brother was mad with him and he killed Osiris. He cut up Osiris
and put the bits into the river Nile so the crocodiles could feed
on him. One day Osiris’s wife found the bits and put the
bits back together and wrapped him in bandages. Osiris was Egypt’s
first mummy and became known as the Ruler of the Dead.
