The Cult of the Dead

Our present-day knowledge about mummification comes
mainly from the writings of the Greek historians Herotodus (5th century BCE)
and Diodorus of Sicily (1st century BCE) and can be confirmed by experiment. To
begin with, the priests removed the internal organs from the body, then
cleansed the body and the organs and dried them with natron. To ensure that the
body remained complete in the realm of the dead, the removed organs were
wrapped in linen strips and placed in four special jars known as canopic jars.
From around the 19th Dynasty (1290–1190 BCE) the lids showed human and animal
heads, the heads of the four sons of Horus.

The jackal-headed Duamutef was responsible for the stomach, and ape-headed Hapi for the lungs.

The human-headed god Amset looked after the liver, and falcon-headed Qebehsenuef the intestines.

The embalmers anointed the body of the deceased and treated it with scented resins and oils. The heart was embalmed and returned to the body, then the body cavities were filled with various substances and the whole body was wrapped in linen bandages interspersed with various amulets.

The coffins were often elaborately decorated with religious texts and scenes

The voluminous collar covering nearly half of the coffin lid is typical for coffins from Akhmim.

On the coffin of Hat, dating from around 600 BCE, a winged Nephthys is depicted. Like her sister Isis, Nephthys was a goddess of the dead. She accompanies the dead into the afterlife and mourns for them.

The lower half of the coffin lid is also decorated with depictions of shrines containing the four sons of Horus, the guardian gods of the canopic jars.

It is completed by the kneeling goddesses Nephthys and Isis and two reclining jackals – the animal form of Anubis, the Ancient Egyptian god of the funerary rites. The jackals are carrying scourges which make a rattling noise to drive away evil spirits.

The coffin with the deceased was taken to the cemetery in a procession of family members, friends, professional mourning women and priests. At the tomb a priest performed the opening of the mouth ceremony in which the deceased was magically “resurrected” by symbolically opening the eyes, nose and mouth.

Mourning sons in the ‘mourning relief’ on the coffin of Ptahemhat, called Ty, the high priest of Ptah, made during the reign of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen.

An ornamented arcade was built along the route of the procession. The sacrificial offerings which were set out were symbolically supposed to feed the dead person and the mourners. As the coffin passed, the jars were shattered by the servants.

The tomb was also a place of remembrance for family members. By saying the name of the deceased and carrying out sacrificial rituals they ensured the sojourn of their dead relative in the afterlife.

In the Old Kingdom (2707–2202 BCE) the offering chapel was inside the tomb.

The most important architectural feature here was the false door, carved from a single block of stone and marking the place where the soul of the deceased could go in and out, making contact possible between the living and the dead.

False doors were originally brightly painted, showing the dead person sitting at a table richly laden with sacrificial offerings. Beneath and beside the table other everyday items can be seen, as well as family members and servants.

The rich decoration of the offering chapels bears testimony to the desire for an afterlife of abundance and opulence.

The burial chambers themselves, in which the dead were buried in heavy sarcophagi or coffins, were normally beneath the offering chapels. The form of the sarcophagi underwent many changes throughout pharaonic times.

Sarcophagi in human shape raised the form of mummies to the level of the monumental. Like mummies, they enclosed the deceased, enabling them to be transformed in them so that they could enter from them into the eternal afterlife.

Sarcophagi of dark granite or basalt weighing up to ten tonnes are covered with reliefs and inscriptions depicting the world of the afterlife.


But what was laboriously chiselled into stone here was also given to the deceased in an even more expansive form, on papyrus scrolls which were laid in the tomb.

From the time of the New Kingdom onwards, the books of
the dead were up to twenty metres in length and vividly depicted in texts and
images the trials the dead person had to pass on the way into the realm of the
dead. Only after passing these trials could the dead person move on into the
realm of the dead. If the outcome was negative, the deceased died a second,
final death as punishment.

A particularly opulent example is the book of the dead of Neferini from the 4th to the 1st Century BCE.

An especially great amount of room is given here to the depiction of the most important trial on the way into the afterlife, the weighing of the heart.

A verdict was reached in judgement of the way the dead person had lived by a court of 42 judges presided over by Osiris.

The dead person had to justify his or her deeds in life and swear a statement that she or he had not committed any of a list of 42 possible sins.

Then the heart was weighed against the feather of Ma’at, the goddess of truth.

The jackal-headed god Anubis watched over the whole proceedings and the outcome was written down by ibis-headed Thoth in his capacity as the scribe of the gods.

The Egyptians also expected that heavy manual labour in the fields would be waiting for them in the afterlife.


Small figurines known as ushabti were placed in tombs, inscribed with the name of the deceased and intended to stand in for the deceased when they were called upon to work in the afterlife. In their crossed arms the ushabti hold hoes and sickles, and some have sacks on their backs.


Ideally, the deceased would have 360 of these figurines, one for each day in the year with five free days.