Transcript Egyptian Afterlife and Culture

Egyptian Afterlife and Culture
By Ryan Wagner
Period: 1-9
12/5/07
Egyptian Presentation Outline
• Spirituality
– Ma’at
– 5 Parts of a person
• Afterlife
– Can be attained
– Extra special for pharaoh
– Need Mummification
• Mummification
– History
– Vocabulary
– Why?
• Religion
-Polytheism
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/home.html
-Brief overview of pantheon
Spirituality
• Ma’at = is both a goddess and an “order”
The word means order in the
universe, without which all
things would be destroyed. Job
of pharaoh is to uphold this
balance by being just and
upholding laws.
Ma’at
• All gods deferred to her
• Every time something was judged “Ma’at
was there”
• Her feather was used in the “Weighing of
the Heart”
Spirituality
• Egyptians believed that the Soul was split
into five parts
• Ka
• Ba
• Ib
• Ren
• Shewt
Ib
• Heart
• Thought to be more important than brain
(emotion, thought, feeling run through it)
• Key to afterlife
• Weighed against feather of Maat
• If heavier then heart fed to Ammit and
body fed to Seth the evil god of
Underworld
Weighing of the Heart
Ka
• Life force
• Made by Creator God Khnum on his pottery
wheel
• Represented by touchdown arms in
hieroglyphics
• What left the body when you died
• Your twin with touchdown arms on your head
• Must be maintained with food and drink
• Make offerings and the spirit of the food and
drink will be consumed by ka
Ka
Ba
• Soul/personality
• Human headed bird flying out of the
pyramid to join with the Ka
• What makes someone unique
• Must journey from the tomb every day and
find the ka
• Must return to body at night in the tomb
Ba
Ren
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•
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Name
Written and spoken
Must not be lost
Attached to individual from birth
Wrote it all over walls, monuments,
statues so spirit could find physical body
Ren
Shewt
• Shadow – small human figure painted
completely black
• An entity with great power and capable of
great speed
• Must be protected
• Pharaoh paintings often seen in shade or
under palm leaf or fan
Shewt
Akh
• Hieroglyph – crested ibis
• Fully resurrected spirit
• Able to leave tomb and make good and
bad things happen in everyday life
• Can go to “heaven” = Land of Reeds
Akh
Afterlife
• At first only possible for Pharaoh
• Later same practices adopted for all
classes
• Priests perform ceremonies and write
spells for protection both in temple and on
sarcophagus
Afterlife
• “opening of the mouth ceremony” –
performed by priest to restore physical
abilities in death, and separate the ba from
its attachment to the body
• Egyptians believe afterlife is similar to the
God of the Dead, Osiris
Afterlife
• He does this each day and while in the
Underworld he has to fight a giant monster
sent by his enemy Seth.
• Similar to that story, the ba must rise each
day and look for the ka, and then the ba
must return to the body each day and
protect it
Mummification
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•
•
Why?
History – used to bury dead in sand but decayed
Used to wrap and bury in sand but decayed
Wrapped Pharaoh for two reasons
– He was Osiris in the flesh
– He would need to be physically recognizable by any
parts of his spirit
• Ba to return each night to protect
• Ka to return to in order to receive food, drink, offerings, etc.
Mummification
• Hery seshta – takes role of Anubis and is
in charge of mummification, might even
wear mask
• Hery heb – reads spells during each part
• Wetyw – do all the removals, bandaging,
ointments, etc.
Mummificaiton
•
Body taken two places
– Place of purification – washed using natron
salts, palm wine, and nile water
– Place of beauty – mummification takes place
**All materials used in the process are buried
along with the body!
Mummification
Procedures
1. Internal (soft and wet) organs removed,
dried, wrapped, placed into canopic jars
2. Sometimes removed brain by chiseling
through nasal cavity and using hooked
device to pull out pieces at a time
3. Jars have heads of four sons of Horus =
Hapy - lungs, Imsety - Liver, Duamutef stomach, and Qebehsenuef - intestines
Procedures Continued
4. Liver, lungs, stomach, intestines – later
Egypt dehydrated and wrapped in linen –
then stuffed back in to body!
5. Body stuffed with things like leaves, saw
dust, and linen to maek it appear life-like
6. Body rubbed in natron and in some
instances stuffed with it – must dry it out –
Embalming
7. Left for forty days to dry
Procedures Continued
8. Temporary stuffing removed
9. Body cavity re-stuffed and packed out with
clean bags of natron, resin soaked
bandages, and lots of perfumes and
ointments.
Procedures Continued
4. Whole body coated in resin/oils to keep skin
elastic
5. Sometimes cosmetics added to make more
life-like
Procedures Continued
• 7. Body completely bandaged up – linen – start
at head, do each limb and torso separately
• Priest reads scripts during wrapping
• 8. Amulets and valuables placed in appropriate
places between bandages according to Book of
the Dead (Spell encyclopedia) – protection and
good luck and balance
Procedures Continued
• Arms and legs tied together and scroll with
protective spells from Book of Dead
placed in hands
• Bandaging would take around 15 days –
add a couple of layers and resins each
day
Procedures Continued
• Cloth wrapped around body and picture of
god Osiris is drawn on
• Large colored cloth is placed around body
and made snug by horizontal and diagonal
colored linen strips
Funerary mask/Death mask placed on head to symbolize
going into another state of existence – see King Tut
Procedures Continued
• Total process took around 70 days
• Family mourns – Opening of the Mouth
Ceremony performed – first food and drink
offering
• Placed into two wooden coffins
• Placed into Stone Sarcophagus with
offerings and valuables to use in afterlife
Opening of the Mouth Ceremony
Gods and Goddesses
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/story/main.html
• Everything started out with Nun, the
waters of Chaos.
• The first thing to rise out of the waters was
Ben-Ben, a mound of earth
• Atum, the first of the gods, appeared on
Ben-Ben
• He spat out Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture)
Gods and Goddesses
• These two children had two chidren of
their own: Nut, goddess of the sky, and
Geb, god of the earth
• They had four children – Osiris, Isis,
Nephthys, and Seth
Gods and Goddesses
• Osiris and Isis became partners and so did
Seth and Nephthys
• Osiris became king of the earth; Seth got
jealous, he ended up killing Osiris once,
and then a second time. Both times Isis
brought Osirius back to life with the help of
magic and the jackal head god Anubis.
Gods and Goddesses
• Isis was able to bring Osiris back to life in
a way again, but he was now god of the
Underworld
• His son, Horus, avenged his father by
defeating Seth
• Seth became evil god of the
netherworld/hell, Horus was god of the
Earth and Living, and Osiris was god of
the Dead and Underworld
Gods and Goddesses
• The Pharaoh is Horus during life and
Osiris at death
• The dead pharaoh must make the journey
to the underworld with the sun at night,
and fight Seth and his minions
• By day the dead pharaoh rises with the
sun
Bibliography
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http://touregypt.net/godsofegypt/maat.htm 12/4/07.
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/home.html 12/4/07.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_soul 12/4/07
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ka.htm 12/4/07
http://library.thinkquest.org/J002037F/ba_and_ka.htm
http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/
egypt_soul.html
• http://www.neferchichi.com/mummies.html