Egypt’s Monuments Part III: The Birth of The Pyramids Part III; The Religious Aspect And How It Connects With It’s Ancient Society Part II

In my last post the focus was on the god-hood of the pharaoh and kings of Egypt, and I kind of got stuck (not in a bad way though) on the resurrection of Jesus compared to the deaths, and non-resurrection, of those who over history have claimed themselves as god. In this post I will finally cover Miroslav Verner’s chapter The Way To Eternity: Ritual And Cult which deals with the religion behind the Pyramids and the cultic rituals used. Many ancient cultures had specific death rituals and funerary rites because many of cultures believed in some sort of afterlife. It was common to believe in something after death, and each culture had their own rituals to secure the deceased in the world beyond. The Egyptians had elaborate funeral rituals and when a king or pharaoh passed on the death rituals became twice as elaborate. Some of these rituals consisted of lengthy funeral processions, the skill of mummification, and the elaborate artwork decorating the tombs and pyramids. I will focus on the funerary rituals, the view of the afterlife, but will deal with how Egypt’s society was affected by their religion in my next post.

Death has been around since the time of Adam and Eve, and it is because of sin, which entered the world when they sinned (Gen. 3:6-24), that death began and has reigned ever since. It has been a custom since to either bury or burn the person who has passed and to ease their passing from this life to the next with funerary rituals and ceremonies. Every culture had some form of rituals and ceremonies for their dead and today we still have funerals. The Greeks would burn their deceased with two coins over their eyes. The coins were used on the deceased’s voyage to the afterlife. In Judaism those who died were buried in a tomb of some kind. The Egyptians buried their dead as well but their rituals and ceremonies are of the most unique within the worlds cultures. Even though preservation of the body was used by many cultures the Egyptians used a different form of it; mummification. Mummification was used because of the Egyptians view of the afterlife; which is the reason that the dead were buried in all cultures. I will go over afterlife in my next paragraph and we will see how the view of their afterlife connects with the burial rituals. It would take quite some time for a body to go through the mummification process plus all the other ceremonial rituals that came with Egypt’s worship of the dead, and it took twice as long if the deceased was a pharaoh. Miroslav Verner goes into the graphic way the Egyptians did the mummification: “The embalmers laid the body on a wooden or stone table, cut open the abdomen, and remove all the entrails, including the liver and the lungs. The heart was, as a rule, left in the body. Then they broke the nasal septum and removed the brain by that route. They placed the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines in four canopic vessels, special stone jars under the protection of the divine sons of Horus.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 32). The heart was where the soul was kept and so this is why it wasn’t removed in the mummification process, because the soul was to be used for the final judgment. One myth is that the deceased’s soul was to be weighed against a feather. The embalmers then would sprinkle natron, which is a form of salt, to preserve the body for about five weeks, and then they would fill in the body with cloth and sew it up (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids, p. 33). Next came the wrapping of the body and Verner explains how extravagant this was in some cases: “Finally, they wrapped the body, which might in some cases be richly decorated with jewels, in linen, laying amulets and small ornaments between the layers of the windings. It has been shown that in one case some 375 square meters of linen were used for the filling and winding of a single mummy.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 33-34). The initial ceremony of the burial ritual took more than a day to secure: “The whole burial ritual, including the mummification, was generally expected to last seventy days, but it sometimes took the better part of a year to complete.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 36). A burial ritual for a pharaoh took twice as long to complete than for the normal people of Egypt that would pass away.

Another death ritual used by the Egyptians was that when a pharaoh was buried all of their possessions were stored in their tomb with them. These objects were to be used in the afterlife. The pharaoh while alive prepared not only his tomb or pyramid for his death, but also prepared the objects and artifacts that would be buried with him, inside his tomb, upon his death. “The deceased was offered everything he needed in the form of offerings and gifts. This was not a unique event, but rather a ritual regularly repeated throughout the year, especially on important feast days. To the pharaoh’s alter flowed the products of his lands and workshops. In this way, during his own lifetime, the ruler was able to furnish the materials for his workshop in times to come. To guarantee that these supplies would be regularly provided in perpetuity, ‘eternal’ scenes of the delivery of sacrifices and long lists of the victims were carved in stone at the cult sites.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p.38). While in life the pharaoh extravagantly decorated his own tomb. Not only on the outside but inside as well with beautiful hieroglyphics portraying many things, and sometimes even portraying his journey to the afterlife. Also he would make sure that the inner rooms of his tomb were filled with more than enough supplies, most of them were filled with riches. All these things, and even the design of the tomb or pyramid, were to be a part of his journey to the afterlife. As I stated in an earlier post the Vikings used a similar ritual for burying their dead, especially the clan leader. Most times the leader was buried or burned in his boat with all his possessions, plus his livestock and horses, and even wives, slaves, and sometimes children. It is unsure if the Early Dynastic kings of Egypt used the same ritual of killing their wives and slaves upon their death.

But why were these death and burial rituals so important for the Egyptians? Because their view of the afterlife drove these rituals. Like most views of an afterlife, the Egyptians believed that depending on how a person lived they would either wind up in an eternal paradise or an eternal hell. “The green, fertile Nile Valley was the ‘beloved land’ of the ancient Egyptians, the world in which they lived and wanted to die. Its polar opposite was the boundless, inhospitable desert that stretched out to the west. This was the place where the sun died every evening, the realm from which no one returned, and which was ruled by the god Osiris. The dividing line between life and death was as distinct as that between the flourishing valley and the endless desert. The gods created man and gave him life. Depending on his conduct while he was on earth, after death he experienced either eternal bliss or eternal damnation.” (Miroslav Verner, The Pyramids: Their Archaeology and History, p. 30). So like all cultures that held to an afterlife you would either spend eternity in a heaven or a hell. The Egyptian view of afterlife is different from the Christian view. Even though the Egyptians believed in a sense of a heaven and a hell they didn’t believe in it the way Christians do. The Egyptians believed that according to how you lived in this life you would end up in paradise or hell. But for the Christian view-point it’s not how you live that will determine if you’ll spend eternity in either heaven or hell. There is one condition and that is to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. Accepting Christ or rejecting him is the determining factor on where you will go in the end. The imagery of heaven and hell has always been similar in all cultures. Heaven is the paradise you always wanted and hell is the place that you don’t wish you worse enemy to go; this is the typical imagery of the afterlife. The Bible doesn’t give us many details of what heaven is like, but it does describe hell more thoroughly. There is a parable that Jesus tells about a rich man and a man named Lazarus who both pass away, and Lazarus who was poor on the earth goes to heaven while the rich man goes to hell: “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’” This story gives us a small description of heaven and hell in the Judaism and Christianity worldview. Heaven is to be a literal paradise where hell is a place of never ending fire, torment, and pain.

Today in our society we hold to similar traditions that the Egyptians held to. Although we do not practice the skill of mummification we do have embalmers today, and their job is to preserve the body of the deceased. We hold funeral ceremonies that are similar to those that the Egyptians held to. A body is brought to the funeral home, and if it is not to be cremated there the mortician will work on the body. In ancient Egypt when a person died there were many different ceremonies that happened and sometimes those ceremonies lasted seventy days or more, but in our culture the burial only takes one day. But the preparation of the body still takes longer than the initial burial ceremony. Today there are different funeral services that the family can choose to do. The traditional service consists of a viewing, a funeral service either at the church or the funerary home’s chapel, and the burial which is called the graveside committal service. But these services vary because of whether the deceased is buried or cremated, whether there can be an open casket service or a closed casket one, and depending on the family’s and deceased’s wishes. But one thing is for sure; no matter if the deceased had any religious background the funeral service is always performed by a Reverend, Priest, Pastor, or any other religious official. This was the same for the ancient Egyptians the priests of the gods would always perform the ceremonies surrounding the deceased. Prayer, scripture reading, and other Christian rituals are used at most funerals today even if the deceased never went to church once in their life. Religion has always been an aspect surrounding a person’s death, not only today, but in all the cultures of the world. There has been a view of an afterlife, and the performing of religious ceremonies of the dead since people first began to pass away. Could this be, as a dear friend of mine says, because eternity is written in our hearts. This phrase suggests that even though cultures have had the wrong view of the afterlife they still held to it and believed that there was something beyond this life, and most cultures even believed that there were only two places to go in the afterlife; heaven or hell. Because of the intellect that God has given us it is inbuilt in us to look at the things of this world, the nature around us, and question where it came from. For centuries it was always a god that created the things of this world, and all cultures believed in either a god or many gods; but nonetheless the world was indeed created by an intelligent being.