INSTRUCTIONS:
Create a 8 pages page paper that discusses ancient egypt mummification. They believed that all humans had Ka conceived in them, which grew up with them from childhood. The Ka left the body after death but remains existed in the form of a spirit. The Ka would enter the body whenever it desired. It had to find and recognize the body for its possession over it. Hence the Egyptians tried to preserve the body and its features to enable Ka to recognize its body. It was believed that the Ka lived in the tomb with his favorite things, food and drink.In ancient Egypt, due to the limited availability of cultivated land, the corpse was placed in a shallow desert sandpit with all the dead person’s favorite possessions. Sand was thrown on top of the body to preserve it. The climate and the environment of the deserts provided the conditions necessary for the natural preservation of the dead bodies. It was an accidental mummification. The dry sand and the sun’s heat aided the process and produced well-preserved bodies which retained some skin tissue, hair and the face which was similar to the dead person when he or she was alive. This process was carried on for a long time and all Egyptians irrespective of whether they were rich or poor were mummified in the desert sand. Later, a sophisticated mummification process arrived which was lengthy and expensive. So the wealthy underwent this lengthy process while the poor continued the practice of burying the dead in the deserts.The process of mummification improved through experimentation over several centuries. The experiments on mummification might have begun as early as the 2nd dynasty. An Egyptologist, J.E. Quibell, got evidence on the use of natron or other preservative agents on the skin of the mummy during the 2nd dynasty “….perhaps evidences an attempt to use natron or another agent as a preservative by applying it to the surface of the skin”. (Monet)The internal organs were called viscera. They were first removed from the thoracic and abdominal cavities.