When people hear Egypt, their mind is automatically drawn to the tombs, pyramids, gold, and mummies. No one really thinks about the origins or ways that these most known aspects of Egypt came around. For example, everyone knows of mummification. Priests embalm the body, take out the organs needed for the afterlife, wrap the body in linen, place protective amulets on the body, and then place the body in a tomb with all kinds of goods just to be looted or found later. Nobody considers how these processes came about and became important to the Egyptians. Mummification and the burials are one of the more know characteristics, but what people normally know about is from the New Kingdom. Believe it or not the origins, importance, and evolution of
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Everyone was buried in a fetal position (David 2000, 373). There was not a royal family or elite that receive special privileges because they had more money (Redford 2001, 439). The first start of this process is seen in the Pre-Dynastic Period. This was individual burials with a few grave goods. There were not any bandages wrapping the whole body, only the head and hands were wrapped when they were buried. There was not any removing of the organs and stuffing them into jars for the afterlife. The actual mummification and preserved skin come from the favorable climate of the desert in Egypt (Jones 2014). Only bandaging the hands and head, became putting a full linen cloth or sheet on the body before burial. In Dynasty II, there is evidence that the Egyptians tried to preserve the body coating the body in a plaster paste and then adding the linen on top. Needless to say, it did not go over very well for the preservation of the mummy (Redford 2001, 440). The bandages or lack thereof are a normal sign of what period it is depending on how the mummy was wrapped up. It was simplistic at first, but everything is developed and evolved into a better and easier way of doing …show more content…
This is the period that everyone thinks of when it comes down to anything Egyptian. Nobody really thinks about how their ideas have evolved into what they know today. The Pre-Dynastic Period, Old Kingdom, and Middle Kingdom were the beginning to one of the most known topics around the world. Mummies are the main attraction to every museum and exhibition. It did not start out as what we know today. There were many ideas and experiments to get the process of the afterlife down to a science. Like everything else in this world, it had to be built up to become what it was. Pyramids and mummies are what people are drawn too. Just do not believe everything had been put in place on a whim one day. Mummification, like so many other aspects of Egypt, had evolved over a
Everyone was buried in a fetal position (David 2000, 373). There was not a royal family or elite that receive special privileges because they had more money (Redford 2001, 439). The first start of this process is seen in the Pre-Dynastic Period. This was individual burials with a few grave goods. There were not any bandages wrapping the whole body, only the head and hands were wrapped when they were buried. There was not any removing of the organs and stuffing them into jars for the afterlife. The actual mummification and preserved skin come from the favorable climate of the desert in Egypt (Jones 2014). Only bandaging the hands and head, became putting a full linen cloth or sheet on the body before burial. In Dynasty II, there is evidence that the Egyptians tried to preserve the body coating the body in a plaster paste and then adding the linen on top. Needless to say, it did not go over very well for the preservation of the mummy (Redford 2001, 440). The bandages or lack thereof are a normal sign of what period it is depending on how the mummy was wrapped up. It was simplistic at first, but everything is developed and evolved into a better and easier way of doing …show more content…
This is the period that everyone thinks of when it comes down to anything Egyptian. Nobody really thinks about how their ideas have evolved into what they know today. The Pre-Dynastic Period, Old Kingdom, and Middle Kingdom were the beginning to one of the most known topics around the world. Mummies are the main attraction to every museum and exhibition. It did not start out as what we know today. There were many ideas and experiments to get the process of the afterlife down to a science. Like everything else in this world, it had to be built up to become what it was. Pyramids and mummies are what people are drawn too. Just do not believe everything had been put in place on a whim one day. Mummification, like so many other aspects of Egypt, had evolved over a