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Ancient Egyptian Beliefs In The Afterlif

Ancient Egyptian Beliefs in the Afterlife
by Amanda Rains
popqueen@intellex.com
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What were the religious beliefs of ancient Egyptians?   Why did they mummify their dead?   Many people have wondered and thought these questions for centuries and have never really found out the whole truth.   Ancient Egyptians belief in the afterlife is very similar to the belief that Christians have.   The only real difference is the gods they believe in and their belief of what happens after death.   The ancient Egyptians wanted everything to be the same, or better, in the afterlife.
Around 4100 BC, people were just buried a few feet underground in the desert.   The hot sun dried out the bodies that were buried in sand, causing a natural mummifying process to occur (Mahdesian).   Other people that were buried in tombs decomposed and had nothing left of their bodies.   Grave robbers found the bodies, that were buried underground, dried up and decided to start a tradition.   They got more sophisticated and wanted to be buried in tombs but didnt want to rot, so they decided to make mummification a religious practice around 2700 BC (Richer).
"Mummification is a drying process, thats all it is," says Linda Mahdesian.   After the person died, the embalmers took the body to a place called the Beautiful House to work on it.   First of all, they cut the left side of the body open with a knife and removed the liver and the lungs.   The brain was removed by placing a straw-like tool to suck it out of the head.   The heart was not removed because they believed that you needed the heart so that Osiris could weigh it and make sure your evil deeds didnt weigh more.   After that, they covered the body with crystals called natron which kept the body from rotting.   They packed the body with dry leaves and then wrapped it in linen which was to be used as a clothing for the afterlife (Eye Witness Books).   The whole process took over seventy days and...