Ancient Egyptian funerary practices
The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of funerary practices that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. These rituals included mummifying the body, casting magic spells, and burials with specific grave goods thought to be needed in the afterlife.
The ancient burial process evolved over time as old customs were discarded and new ones adopted, but several important elements of the process persisted. Although specific details changed over time, the preparation of the body, the magic rituals, and grave goods were all essential parts of a proper Egyptian funeral.
History
Although no writing survived from the Predynastic period in Egypt, scholars believe the importance of the physical body and its preservation originated during that time. This likely explains why people of that time did not follow the common practice of cremation among neighboring cultures, but rather buried the dead. Some of the scholars believe the Predynastic-era Egyptians may have feared the bodies would rise again if mistreated after death.Early burials were in simple, shallow oval pits, with a few burial goods. Sometimes multiple people and animals were placed in the same grave. Over time, graves became more complex. At one point, bodies were placed in a wicker basket and later on wooden or terracotta coffins became the preferred choice. The latest tombs Egyptians made were sarcophagi. These graves contained burial goods such as jewellery, food, games, and sharpened flint.
From the Predynastic period through the final Ptolemaic dynasty, there was a constant cultural focus on eternal life and the certainty of personal existence beyond death. This belief in an afterlife is reflected in the burial of grave goods in tombs. The Egyptian beliefs in an afterlife became known throughout the ancient world by way of trade and cultural transmission and had an influence on other civilizations and religions. Notably, this belief became well known by way of the Silk Road. Egyptians believed that individuals were admitted into the afterlife on the basis of being able to serve a purpose there. For example, the king was thought to be allowed into the afterlife because of the role as a ruler of Ancient Egypt, which would be a purpose translated into qualification for admission to the afterlife.
Human sacrifices found in early royal tombs reinforce the idea of serving a purpose in the afterlife. Those sacrificed were probably meant to serve the king in the afterlife. Eventually, figurines and wall paintings begin to replace human victims. Some of these figurines may have been created to resemble certain people, so they could follow the king after their own lives ended.
Not only did the lower classes rely on the king's favor, but also the noble classes. They believed that upon death, kings became deities who could bestow upon certain individuals the ability to have an afterlife. This belief existed from the predynastic period through the Old Kingdom.
Although many spells from the earlier texts were carried over, the new Coffin Texts also had new spells added, along with slight changes made to make the new funerary text more relatable to the nobility. In the First Intermediate period, however, the importance of the king declined. Funerary texts, previously restricted to royal use, became more widely available. The kings no longer were god-kings in the sense that admission to the next life was allowed in the next life only due to the royal status, the role of kings changed, becoming merely the rulers of the population who upon death, would be leveled down toward the plane of the mortals.
Prehistory, earliest burials
Some of the earliest burial sites in ancient Egypt are of the Merimde culture, which dates to 4800-4300 B.C. Located in the Nile delta, they are known for producing clay figurines, but did not bury their dead with grave goods or offerings. The first evidence of funerals in Egypt with grave goods are known from the villages of Omari and Maadi in the north, near present-day Cairo. The people of these villages buried their dead in a simple, round grave with a pot. The body was neither treated nor arranged in a particular way as these aspects would change later in the historical period. Without any written evidence, except for the regular inclusion of a single pot in the grave,there is little to provide information about contemporary beliefs concerning the afterlife during that period. Given later customs, the pot was probably intended to hold food for the deceased.
Predynastic period, development of customs
Funerary customs were developed during the Predynastic period from those of the Prehistoric period. At first, people excavated round graves with one pot in the Badarian period, continuing the tradition of Omari and Maadi cultures. By the end of the Predynastic period, there were increasing numbers of objects deposited with the body in rectangular graves, and there is growing evidence of rituals practiced by Egyptians of the Naqada II period. At this point, bodies were regularly arranged in a crouched, compact position, with the face pointing toward either the east and the rising sun or the west that in this historical period was the land of the dead. Artists painted jars with funeral processions and perhaps images of ritual dancing. Figures of bare-breasted women with birdlike faces and their legs concealed under skirts also appeared. Some graves were much richer in goods than others, demonstrating the beginnings of social stratification. Gender differences in burials emerged with the inclusion of weapons in men's graves and cosmetic palettes in women's graves.By 3600 BCE, Egyptians had begun to mummify the dead, wrapping them in linen bandages with embalming oils.
Early Dynastic period, tombs and coffins
By the First Dynasty, some Egyptians were wealthy enough to build tombs over their burials rather than placing their bodies in simple pit graves dug into the sand. The rectangular, mudbrick tomb with an underground burial chamber, termed a mastaba in modern archaeology, developed in the Early Dynastic period. These tombs had niched walls, a style of building called the palace-façade motif because the walls imitated those surrounding the palace of the king. Since commoners as well as kings, however, had such tombs, the architecture suggests that in death, some wealthy people did achieve an elevated status. Later in the historical period, it is certain that the deceased was associated with the god of the dead, Osiris.Grave goods expanded to include furniture, jewelry, and games as well as the weapons, cosmetic palettes, and food supplies in decorated jars known earlier, in the Predynastic period. In the richest tombs, grave goods then numbered in the thousands. Only the newly invented coffins for the body were made specifically for the tomb. Some inconclusive evidence exists for mummification. Other objects in the tombs that had been used during daily life suggest that in the First Dynasty Egyptians already anticipated needing such objects in the next life. Further continuity from this life into the next can be found in the positioning of tombs: those persons who served the king during their lifetimes chose burials close to their king. The use of stela in front of the tomb began in the First Dynasty, indicating a desire to individualize the tomb with the deceased's name.
Old Kingdom, pyramids and mummification
In the Old Kingdom, kings first built pyramids for their tombs surrounded by stone mastaba tombs for their high officials. The fact that most high officials were also royal relatives suggests another motivation for such placement: these complexes were also family cemeteries.Among the elite, bodies were mummified, wrapped in linen bandages, sometimes covered with molded plaster, and placed in stone sarcophagi or plain wooden coffins. At the end of the Old Kingdom, mummy masks in cartonnage also appeared. Canopic jars became used to hold their internal organs. Amulets of gold, faience, and carnelian first appeared in various shapes to protect different parts of the body. There is also the first evidence of inscriptions inside the coffins of the elite during the Old Kingdom. Often, reliefs of everyday items were etched onto the walls to supplement grave goods, which made them available through their representation.
The new false door was a non-functioning stone sculpture of a door, found either inside the chapel or on the outside of the mastaba; it served as a place to make offerings and recite prayers for the deceased. Statues of the deceased were being included in tombs and used for ritual purposes. Burial chambers of some private people received their first decorations in addition to the decoration of the chapels. At the end of the Old Kingdom, the burial chamber decorations depicted offerings, but not people.
First Intermediate period, regional variation
The political situation in the First Intermediate period, with its many centers of power, is reflected in the many local styles of art and burial at that time. The many regional styles for decorating coffins make their origins easy to distinguish from each other. For example, some coffins have one-line inscriptions and many styles include the depiction of Wadjet eyes. There are also regional variations in the hieroglyphs used to decorate coffins.Occasionally men had tools and weapons placed in their graves, while some women had jewelry and cosmetic objects, such as mirrors. Grindstones were sometimes included in women's tombs, perhaps to be considered a tool for food preparation in the next world, just as the weapons in men's tombs imply men's assignment to a role in fighting.
Middle Kingdom, new tomb contents
Burial customs in the Middle Kingdom reflect some of the political trends of that period. During the Eleventh Dynasty, tombs were cut into the mountains of Thebes surrounding the king's tomb or, in local cemeteries in Upper and Middle Egypt; Thebes was the native city of the Eleventh Dynasty kings, and they preferred to be buried there. But the Twelfth Dynasty high officials served the kings of a new family now ruling from the north in Lisht; these kings and their high officials preferred burial in a mastaba near the pyramids belonging to their masters. Moreover, the difference in topography between Thebes and Lisht led to a difference in tomb type: In the north, nobles built mastaba tombs on the flat desert plains, while in the south, local dignitaries continued to excavate tombs into the mountain.For those of ranks lower than royal courtiers during the Eleventh Dynasty, tombs were simpler. Coffins could be simple wooden boxes with the body either mummified and wrapped in linen or simply wrapped without mummification, and the addition of a cartonnage mummy mask, a custom that continued until the Graeco-Roman period. Some tombs included wooded shoes and a simple statue near the body. In one burial there were only twelve loaves of bread, a leg of beef, and a jar of beer for food offerings. Jewelry could be included but only rarely were objects of great value found in non-elite graves. Some burials continued to include the wooden models that were popular during the First Intermediate period. Wooden models of boats, scenes of food production, craftsmen and workshops, and professions such as scribes or soldiers have been found in the tombs of this period.
Some rectangular coffins of the Twelfth Dynasty have short inscriptions and representations of the most important offerings the deceased required. For men, the objects depicted were weapons and symbols of office as well as food. Women's coffins depicted mirrors, sandals, and jars containing food and drink. Some coffins included texts that were later versions of the royal Pyramid Texts.
Another kind of faience model of the deceased as a mummy seems to anticipate the use of shabti figurines later in the Twelfth Dynasty. These early figurines do not have the text directing the figure to work in the place of the deceased that is found in later figurines. The richest people had stone figurines that seem to anticipate shabtis, though some scholars have seen them as mummy substitutes rather than servant figures.
In the later Twelfth Dynasty, significant changes occurred in burials, perhaps reflecting administrative changes enacted by King Senwosret III. The body was now regularly placed on its back, rather than its side as had been traditional for thousands of years. Coffin texts and wooden models disappeared from new tombs of the period while heart scarabs and figurines shaped as mummies were now often included in burials, as they would be for the remainder of Egyptian history. Coffin decoration was simplified. The Thirteenth Dynasty saw another change in decoration. Different motifs were found in the north and south, a reflection of decentralized government power at the time. There was also a marked increase in the number of burials in one tomb, a rare occurrence in earlier periods. The reuse of one tomb by a family over generations seems to have occurred when wealth was more equitably spread.