The ancient Egyptians envisioned birth and death as two sides of a single life. They believed that nobody and nothing dies, everything just changes, transforms. Death for them was not the end of life, but only a new beginning, rebirth, continuation of the existence of the Immortal Soul of a person in another world.
The Egyptians believed that man continues to exist beyond death, they believed that man is part of the universe. Ancient Egyptian texts represent a person as a unity of two opposites: the physical body - Kat - a fish floating in the material space of earthly life, the immortal soul Ba - a bird.
After the death of the physical body of a person - Kat, his name remains to live - Ren, the soul - Ba (eternal life) and the energy double of man - Ka (astral plane). Ka - goes, like the Sun, to the land of darkness to the west - Duat (afterlife), where the souls of all the dead dwell.
Throughout the history of Ancient Egypt, the pharaohs were guided by the laws of Universal Harmony, which were embodied in the image of the winged Goddess Maat and her symbol - an ostrich feather. Maat is the Goddess of Truth and Justice, a symbol of prudence, order, unity and harmony.
The myths say that God Ra - Amon created the laws of the universe according to Maat - according to Truth. To deserve life in Eternity after death, it was necessary to observe the laws of Maat, which were the raison d'être for the Egyptians.
According to Egyptian mythology, the Goddess Maat is the daughter of the sun god Ra, a participant in the creation of the world. The ancient Egyptians believed that every deceased had to appear before 42 judges and plead innocent or guilty of sins. The soul of the deceased was weighed on a scale balanced by the ostrich feather of the Goddess Maat. Libra was held by God Anubis, the verdict was pronounced by the husband of Maat - God Thoth. If a person lived his life "with Maat in his heart", was pure and sinless, he revived for a happy life.
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The belief of the Egyptians in the "resurrection of souls" and the afterlife was reinforced by the world around them: every evening the Sun set in the west, and every morning it was reborn in the east, and the Moon shrank and increased.
The Egyptians believed that everything in the world is interdependent, and life after death must also obey certain laws: the body must go through the process of mummification and be stored in a grave containing everything necessary for life in the other world. The process of mummification of the body is described in the ancient “Pyramid Texts”: “… with the death of Osiris - the God of the dead, the Universe was swallowed up by Chaos, and the tears of the Gods turned into materials to mummify his body. These materials included honey, rosin and incense."
Mummification was not a prerequisite for the resurrection of the soul in the afterlife, but it was considered the most sure way to achieve the goal. To help the deceased make a successful transfer to another world, the prayers of the Book of the Dead were used.
The art of mummification involved the removal of internal organs, which were washed with palm wine and spices, and kept in four separate "canopes" - vessels made of limestone, calcite, or clay. The heart was left inside the body - it was believed that the mind of the deceased was concentrated in it.
On the canopic lids, four sons of the God Horus were depicted: a deity with a human head - Imseti guarded the liver, Hapi - the baboon was the keeper of the lungs, Duamutef - the jackal protected the stomach, Kebehsenuef - the hawk took care of the intestines.
A mummy was created from the body of a deceased person, using chemicals of plant or animal origin. The faces of the dead were covered with masks made of papyrus, wood, silver or gold. The most famous is the burial mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
Great importance was attached to the burial procedure. An important place in it was occupied by the ceremony of "opening the lips and eyes." It was believed that during this ceremony, the soul of the deceased flies out of the body and falls on the "last judgment of Osiris."
Recently, archaeologists have discovered a door that led from the tomb of the chief minister of Queen Hatshepsut - Usera, to … "life after death." The discovery is 3500 years old, it is a slab of pink granite 1.75 meters high and 0.5 meters wide, decorated with seals and sacred texts.
Such "portals" were found in almost all tombs of Ancient Egypt. Through them, the souls of the dead had to not only leave our world, but also return. Fake doors were placed in the western walls of the tombs.
In the famous Valley of the Kings in Luxor, about a hundred tombs have been discovered, almost all are pharaohs, among them: Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, Tutankhamun, Horemheb, Ramses I, Seti I, Ramses III, Ramses VI, Ramses IX.
In the Valley of the Queens, where not only the queens - the wives and mothers of the pharaohs, but also the untimely deceased Egyptian princes were buried, archaeologists have discovered over 70 tombs. Of greatest interest is the tomb of Nefertari, wife of Ramses II. The wall paintings of her tomb illustrate the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
The most important ancient Egyptian symbol of immortality was the Ankh, in which two symbols are combined - a cross, as a symbol of life, and a circle, as a symbol of eternity. Their combination means immortality. Ankh - the unity of male and female principles - the oval of Isis and the cross of Osiris, the key to esoteric knowledge and the immortal life of the spirit.
The Egyptians believed that the image of Ankh prolongs life on earth. They also buried with this amulet, believing that the departed will live in another world. According to the ideas of the Egyptians, the key that could open the gates of death had just such a shape.
Author: Valentina Zhitanskaya
