Likewise, the dead were honored with elaborate preparation rituals to send them off into the next, permanent world of death. They were incased in enormous preservative monuments as well as several layers of coffins. Because of this elaborate nature of death ritual, and their focus on religious rituals, Egyptians were often credited by the Greeks for originating their religion, as "the Egyptians, they went on to affirm, first brought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them; and first erected altars, images, and temples to the gods; and also first engraved upon stone the figures of animals." (Herodotus, Chapter II) the practice and the practice of religion, and the practice of art and the practice of burying the dead were conjoined for the Egyptians.
Why preserve the body so carefully? The Egyptians believed that the mummified body was the home for this soul or spirit, as sarcophaguses housed, temporarily, the bodies of the dead. If the body was destroyed, the spirit would be lost. The idea of the spirit was linked to physically preserving the body. Every...
The ritual tended to the body's three spirits: the ka, ba, and akh by tending to the body. The buried person's ka remained within the tomb and needed the offerings and objects provided for the body, while the ba could fly within and without of the tomb, and the akh had to travel through the Underworld to the Final Judgment and entrance to the Afterlife. (Brier, 1994)
This layered nature of the soul was reflected in the nature of the burial. Thus, the structure of Egyptian death ritual served a physical and a metaphorical function. Physically, it preserved and protected the body, the house of the different aspects of the human soul. Metaphorically, the elaborate and layered nature of burial and of the actual structure of the sarcophagus reflected the layered nature of the spirit.
Works Cited
Brier, Bob. Egyptian Mummies: Unraveling the Secrets of an Ancient Art. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994.
Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Harry Carter. New York: The Heritage Press. Book II. Vol. I. 1958.
