MUMMIFICATION PROCESS! Help!?

Question

Hey does anyone know about the mummification process or, the ancient Egyptian tombs?

Answer 1

Take out organs, wrap the body. IN details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy

Answer 2

I suggest you visit the local library for better details: but the highlights are:

*take dead person, who is normally quite wealthy; remove larger organs (liver, stomach, etc) and put in separate jars filled with a preserving liquid.  The heart was left early on, later removed and a stone (heart stone) was left as a representation.

*Body packed with salt, buried in sand for 40 days to remove all the water.

*Body then wrapped in linen strips, bejeweled, painted with eyes, etc.

*A feast called the opening of the mouth (or something like that) held with the mummy at the head of the table.  It was meant to start the body to the after-world.

*Body buried in tomb with presents, anything needed in life after death.

The process also changed as they got better at doing it, fyi.

Tombs started as simple pits in the desert, but sand shifts, so they start putting slabs called Mastaba (tables) on them. Then one Pharoah decides to have a multi-leveled on (Step Pyramid).  His successors start getting tombs with level sides, eventually giving us the great pyramid.

That was the Old Kingdom.

The MiddleKingdom had relatively boring tombs.

The Old Kingdom buried their kings in the Valley of the Kings. (Anytime you heard of a tomb called KV#, its in that valley)

Answer 3

I was in the Great Pyramid in 2002.  I saw a tomb with my own eyes.  It was beautiful and empty.  The Egyptian mummies were deliberately made by drying the body. By eliminating moisture, you have eliminated the source of decay. They dried the body by using a salt mixture called natron. Natron is a natural substance that is found in abundance along the Nile river. Natron is made up of four salts: sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride, and sodium sulfate. The sodium carbonate works as a drying agent, drawing the water out of the body. At the same time the bicarbonate, when subjected to moisture, increases the pH that creates a hostile environment for bacteria. The Egyptian climate lent itself well to the mummification process, being both very hot and dry.