Why the Egyptians Made Mummies

Why did the Egyptians want to make mummies in the first place? Very likely it was because of their strong belief in the magical power of images. They believed that in addition to a body, every person had a soul or spirit that would live on after death. The spirit could do many things. It could eat, drink, move about, and enjoy the same pleasures as when the body had been alive. But in order to do these things, the spirit had to have a recognizable body to dwell in. If the person’s image—the body—was destroyed, the spirit might not be able to live on after death. So preserving the body was very important.

The ka lived in the body until death. Once the person died, the ka too would die unless it was provided with a very exact image of the dead person. Sometimes a statue would serve to house the ka, but a lifelike mummy was best.

The ka also needed food in order to survive. When the Egyptian villagers left jars of grains and water in the shallow sand graves of their dead, they were feeding the ka. Later, the food offerings in Egyptian tombs became much more lavish.

The ba was another form of the dead person’s spirit. Unlike the ka, which stayed in the tomb with the mummy, the ba was able to leave. It was said to be able to take any shape it liked. But it was usually shown as a small bird with a human head that resembled that of the dead person.

The ba could fly out of the tomb, magically passing through walls of solid rock or through deep shafts packed with rough broken stones. But it always returned to the tomb at night, sometimes bearing a small, lighted candle. Like the ka, the ba had to be able to find and recognize the body to which it belonged. Without a mummy, there would be no ka and no ba. There would be no afterlife. Death would be final and complete, a fate that the Egyptians could not accept.

Why were the Egyptians so eager for an afterlife? One reason may have been that life along the Nile was so peaceful and pleasant that they wanted it to continue after death. The Nile dwellers were protected from invading armies by the desert that lay to the east and west of the river, the rocky Nile waterfalls to the south, and the sea to the north. The land itself was warm and sunny, and the fields were fruitful. The farmers worked hard, of course, but they were rewarded with the simple necessities of life. The very world in which the afterlife of the farming people was said to take place lay beneath the desert sands and parallel to the life-giving Nile River.

After Egypt became a great kingdom, the afterlife became even more important. Naturally, a king’s afterlife was far different from that of a commoner. It was as rich and luxury filled as his life on earth, for the king was believed to be an earthly god. And when he died he became a heavenly god who would see to the well being of his people forever and ever. He would also be able to seek favor with the many other gods in whom the Egyptians believed.

But none of this could happen unless the king’s ka survived. And his ka could not survive unless his mummy was magnificently prepared to last until the very end of time.

Ranofer is a Theban boy of about twelve who has been forced to live with his cruel and abusive half-brother Gebu since the death of his beloved father Thutra. Although Ranofer had been learning to be a goldsmith from his father and had shown great talent, Gebu has made him work as a mere hireling in a goldworking shop. As this passage begins, Ranofer faces a terrible dilemma. He suspects Gebu

and his friends of stealing gold, and what is worse, of using Ranofer himself to carry the stolen gold. However, he has no proof or anyone to turn to for help. He has just spent a restless night worrying about what to do.

Ranofer awoke with the plan fully formed in his mind. He sat up, blinking and confused. Was he still dreaming? Surely when he closed his eyes last night he had felt no hope, seen no way out. Yet this morning a solution was here before him.

Carefully, afraid to believe in it yet, he examined his plan. Except for one small risk, he found it flawless. Obviously the gods had brought it to him while he slept.

Doubtless it was one god only, he thought more humbly as he rolled up his mat and started for the storeroom. A minor god, one of no importance, who perhaps helped me for my father’s sake. Or perhaps it was not a god at all, but my father himself!

He stood still beside the water jar, feeling the tears come into his eyes and sting the lids. If that were true! If he could think his father’s ba sometimes fluttered out of the tomb by night on its little bird wings and came to see if all was well with him. . . .

His eyes narrowed suddenly in an effort to call back a memory of the night or perhaps a dream. No, it was not a dream. Something had happened, deep in the middle of the night. A step? A sound? That was it, a sound. It had half wakened him and he had been afraid for a moment, because he had thought it was the squeak of the leather hinges on Gebu’s bedroom door. He knew now it had not been the hinges. It was the soft fluttering of his father’s ba.

A few minutes later he was scrambling breathlessly along a path northwest of the City of the Dead, where the cliffs curved far inward toward the river. In the sandy wasteland around him were the graves of the city’s poor, each with an earthen jug or plate beside it holding the sun-dried remnants of a funerary offering. Behind this common burial ground the rough face of the cliff was

honeycombed with the better tombs of artisans and scribes and merchants, carved into the rock itself. One of these was Thutra the goldsmith’s. Arriving at the place, Ranofer stopped a moment to catch his breath. Then respectfully he entered the tiny chapel of his father’s tomb.

It was no more than a shallow alcove hewn into the face of the cliff, with an offering table against one wall and a small stone statue of Thutra opposite. Facing the entrance was a false door, built against the bricked-in side of the shaft that dropped straight downward to the burial chamber itself. Ranofer looked with large eyes at this door. It could not open. It was not made so. Yet through it his father’s ba had magically emerged last night and fluttered on silent wings to the Street of the Crooked Dog to help his son.

Ranofer turned to the little statue. It was not a good likeness. Gebu had hired an indifferent sculptor, whose price was cheap, and the result looked nothing like the Thutra Ranofer remembered; but it was all he had.

"Father," he said softly.

His voice seemed to set up a curious rustling in that silent place. He darted a wary glance at the false door, not knowing whether to feel hopeful or afraid. However, no wraithlike, human-headed bird appeared.

Untying his sash, he arranged the bits of food upon the plate on the offering table. It looked a poor enough meal to set before one’s father. Perhaps he should not have eaten the other half.

Father will understand how hungry I was, he thought. Turning to the statue again he whispered rapidly, "Father, thank you. I am sorry I could not bring a better gift. Please, please come again."

With a little bow and a last awed look at the false door, he backed out of the chapel and set off hurriedly for Rekh’s shop and his work.