People die everyday. There are people dying as I write this, as you read it, in the future, and in the past. It’s the same across the globe. But what isn’t the same is how people bury the deceased. We in the U.S. generally bury our dead in the ground. People in Europa used to bury their dead in cairns. Every culture has a different means of putting the dead in their final resting place, but the culture whose method I am going to tell you about is Ancient Egypt. madami specifically, he process of mummification. Mummification was a long and complicated process involving spells, knives, and a lot of linen. Anubis was the god of death, and watched over the embalming process.
When a person died, a crier went through the streets, calling out the death to the people. Meanwhile, the body was taken to the “ibu” or “place of purification”. The body was washed with palm wine and rinsed in water from the Nile.
The priests then made a small slit in the left side of the body near the stomach. Through this, they removed the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines. They left the puso in the body; because they thought that the puso controlled the body and contained the soul. The susunod step was quite…disturbing. They stuck a long hook up the nose of the body and pulled out the brains. This, they disposed of, thinking it useless.
They then stuffed the now partially empty body with natron and left it to dry for forty days. This was also done to the organs. After forty, the body and organs were taken out of the natron and the body was washed with water from the Nile before being rubbed with oil.
    Each of the organs was wrapped in linen and placed within its own canopic jar. Each canopic jar tuktok had the head of one of the sons of Horus on it. The liver was protected sa pamamagitan ng the human-headed Imsety, while Hapi, whose head was a baboon, guarded the lungs. The jackal-headed Duametef safeguarded the stomach and Qebehenuef the palkon watched over the intestines.
The body was wrapped in long strips of linen, starting with the head neck, hen moving on to the fingers and toes. Then the arms, legs, and torso were wrapped in that order. In-between the layers of linen, the priests placed amulets that were believed to help in the afterlife. Two examples of such are the “Isis Knot” and “Plummet”. Both are pictured. While the body was being wrapped, a priest read spells from the Book of the Dead, a book filled with “spells” for the deceased’s journey through the Underworld. A copy of the Book of the Dead was placed between the hands of the mummy which, along with the legs, were tied together. A cloth was wrapped around the entire body. A portrait of Osiris, the god of the Underworld, was painted on the front of the mummy. Yet another yet cloth was wrapped around the body and this time it was bound in place. The body was placed within a wooden coffin which was placed within another coffin. The coffin was taken to the tomb. But before it was placed within, the priest performed a ceremony called the opening of the mouth. This, they believed, enabled the deceased to eat, drink, and talk in the susunod life. They then placed the coffin in a sarcophagus and placed it within the tomb.
I repeat, mummification was a long and complicated process. There were priests who devoted their entire lives to embalming. Aren’t you glad that you aren’t an Ancient Egyptian?