Today I want to write about ancient Egypt..I had been to a art museum in Nashville and the concept was about ancient Egypt, the land of enigma and awe...
It had many artifacts from the Egypt museum in Cairo and the most exciting part is, they have recreated the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen, exactly as it was in Egypt and it was pretty amazing. Of course, it didnt have the sand of the desert or the musty smell you would expect in a tomb of thousands of years, but it did have friendly descriptions of what the hieroglyphs on the tombs meant in english and also some good lighting and of course air-conditioning (Its easy to not notice it, but imagine how hot it will be in a desert). ok anyways, coming back to the main topic, the hieroglyphs described what was the purpose of mummification and what actually would happen inside the tomb (or what they 'believed' would happen inside a tomb)- it goes like this - The main part is played by Sun God. Ancient Egyptians believe in Sun God as one of the supreme Gods and that Sun God undergoes a journey from dusk to dawn in the netherland and fight evil demons before he can rise again.
The night is divided into 12 hours and the Sun God begins his journey from Hour 1 at the entry point to the netherland, and he has to cross the netherland in these 12 hours (fighting evils on the way) and regain his sould. The Pharaohs aid the Sun God in regaining his soul and cross the netherland. In turn the Sun God helps them in uniting with their soul and attaining afterlife. So it is like a mutual understanding. So the journey goes like this..The Pharaoh and the Sun God start their journey on the solar boat across river Nile in the netherworld. They believed that river Nile flows across in the netherworld also. They also believed that people grow plants and other grains in the netherworld and the netherworld is more fertile than the actual world because the soil there is more fertile. ok, so the pharaoh and the Sun God start their journey in the netherworld at hour 1. They are protected by other Gods and Goddesses and Pharaohs. They continue their journey quite smoothly till hour 4. At hour 5, the river nile dries up and the desert begins. At this point the solar boat magically becomes a giant serpent or snake that can slide across the desert sand. Also the evils try to fight with the Sun God and the Pharaoh. But the other Gods and Goddesses kill those evil demons and aid the Sun God and the Pharoah in reuniting with their souls. This happens at hour 6. From then on they move across the desert till hour 12 to the end of netherland. At Hour 12, the Sun God rises and all is happy and the Pharaoh has reunited with his soul and has attained afterlife.
The ancient egyptians believed that the Pharaoh will protect his people once he attains afterlife. Also the Sun God takes on different forms at different times of day and night. He is depicted as a Scarab beetle in the morning (because the beetle lays eggs in dung - rejuvenates life from dead) and as a ram in the night.
That is the gist of mummification. But there are lot of other details related to mummies. One story that is really of interest is the origin of mummification. Why and how did mummification actually start? There was a great King of Egypt called Osiris. He was brutally murdered by his brother and his brother dismembered his body and threw the parts all over egypt. Osiris's wife Isis collects all his body parts, wraps them in linen and then brings him to life with magic. Osiris becomes the Lord of Underworld (or Netherworld). They have a son called Horus who went on to become a great king of Egypt. (I just read another version of this story at wikipedia..so I think this is one of the famous versions). So driving back to the original reason, we went into this story, whatever Isis had done has become an inspiration for Mummification.
ok, so what about all those things that go into the tomb along with the mummy. Since the Pharaoh is believed to attain aterlife after mummification, he would very much lead a normal life in the afterlife (kind of confusing..but thats how it is). So he would need all the things that he would need in the normal life. So they placed food, furniture, clothes and jewelry (which is a string attraction for the robbers) in the tombs. One very interesting point is, it is not necessary to place real food or real life size furniture in the tombs. Even if you place a replica of the item, it would come real with magic. Also they used to keep toy workers to help the king to do agricutural work and other things. And they would all come to life with magic. These wooden figures were called Shabti or Ushabti (I think in the later part of the century) and they were also placed in coffin-like boxes. So that explained one long lasting doubt I had when I watching the movie "Mummy". What were all those dummy skeleton soldiers doing in the tomb??
And there were many other things at the Museum, but I will write about those in the next blog..this had already become pretty long. By the time I came out of the museum, I was all enchanted about ancient Egypt. One great marketing skill I had to appreciate at the museum was, they had the gift shop immediately after you step out of the museum...in fact there is no door in between...so you are in this trance and you walk into this gift shop, you feel like buying something and take a part of Egypt with you to home. I had to be literally dragged out of the shop to stop buying any of those expensive goods!!
One disclaimer is: I have tried to put together what ever I have understood at the museum. This might not be the most accurate version and there may be some misunderstood version of a belief. And this is all what I have written from my memory ;)
