Egyptian Practice of Mummification - Essay Example

There was a need of cultivatable ground and therefore the early Egyptians decided to bury their deceased inside shallow graves on the borders of the barren region, where the high temperature of the sun as well as the waterlessness of the land produced the normal mummification procedure. Experts have indicated that “even this natural process produced remarkably well preserved bodies” (Dunand et al, p. 67). Mostly, these “early natural mummified bodies” (Dunand et al, p. 72) preserved skin tissue and hair, together with a resemblance to the individual's look when he was living.

Mummification was the procedure of protecting and enclosing a deceased body with the conviction that the deceased would be needed during the Ancient Egyptian eternal life. By means of a particular procedure, the Ancient Egyptians got rid of all moisture from the dead body, leaving just a dried figure that would not easily decompose. The procedure of Mummification needs reducing “microbial growth and dehydration” (Dunand et al, p. 102). The method of forming a mummy was difficult as well as expensive and was followed by formal procedure and service.

As Egyptian record developed, mummification becomes accessible to public from the high and even the middle ranks. The political as well as financial development of the middle ranks along with the better significance of spiritual way of life and practices amid every Egyptian social rank resulted in the increase of mummification to fresh sectors of the inhabitants. Mummification was in fact most prevalent throughout the Greco-Roman era. It was at that time when foreign colonizers who established in Egypt started to implement Egyptian ‘funerary’ (Dunand et al, p. 188) convictions and traditions.

Mummification during that time turns out to be an increasingly flourishing profitable endeavor, and it is likely to specify the demise's public position instead of any spiritual belief. This causes an additional drop in the excellence of the mummification procedure. At that point in time, bodies were ornately covered and enclosed in covers prepared from the blend of “plaster and papyrus or linen” (Brier, p. 99). On the other hand, contemporary radiographic investigation authenticates that these bodies were often badly sealed within their casings.

Studies have indicated that “mummification was never generally available to the common classes of people” (Brier, p. 120). However, in view of the fact that they could not meet the expense of the refined ‘funerary’ formations, they carried on to be ‘interred’ in plain graves within barren region “where their bodies were naturally preserved” (Brier, p. 145). The real mummification procedure required more or less seventy days. The body of the dead was customarily rinsed and cleansed to start the expedition into the life after death.

The subsequent step involved taking out the inner organs. With the intention of drying out the organs as well as avoid decomposition they were positioned in ‘natron’, a kind of salt applied for drying. The body was subsequently filled with more ‘natron’. Once the body was adequately dried off, the natron was taken away and the body was cleansed cautiously. The body was covered in linen. Every mummy