It is easy to get so caught up in the majesty and spectacle of the pyramids that one forgets their original purpose: They were tombs, or rather houses in which the dead would “live” during the next life. For this reason, all the pyramids (the Egyptians constructed more than eighty) were built on the west side of the Nile, toward the place where the sun went down, or “died,” each night.
Deep inside each pyramid was a burial chamber for the pharaoh. Because they buried their kings with great stores of treasure, the Egyptians were aware that robbers might try to get in and steal the valuables, so they designed the pyramids with confusing networks of passages, including blind alleys and doors that led nowhere. Before a pyramid was closed up for good, the builders sealed its chambers shut with granite blocks or huge quantities of sand.
These “tricks” were another feature pioneered by Imhotep in the Step Pyramid, which contained a complex of underground chambers. The Great Pyramid, too, has a number of passageways, including a vast hallway called the Grand Gallery. Originally its entrance was concealed under polished blocks that looked exactly the same as the rest of its exterior.
Beyond these barriers and passageways, deep inside the pyramid, was a burial chamber that would serve as the home of the pharaoh's body in the next life. A dead body, however, will rapidly decompose if simply left to decay; therefore the Egyptians developed a means to preserve the bodies, a process called mummification. Mummification involves embalming, a chemical process meant to preserve a corpse, or dead body. Embalming is still practiced in modern funeral homes.
The Egyptians, because they intended for corpses to last for centuries, made an art of the embalming process. Modern
Three mummies laying side-by-side, displayed for a museum exhibit in Boston, Massachusetts.
AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.
Americans tend to approach this subject with a little fear and disgust, but it was perfectly natural to the Egyptians, who called the mortuary (a place where bodies are prepared for burial) the “Beautiful House.” Morticians, or mortuary workers, believed they were guided by the god Anubis. Indeed, their work ranks among the great achievements of ancient Egypt. From their experiments in the preservation of bodies comes some of the world's earliest anatomical and medical knowledge.
The morticians first removed most of the corpse's internal organs. Then they dried the body using a variety of chemicals, most notably natron, a compound much like baking soda that came from the surrounding desert. Usually they would let the body sit in natron crystals for forty days. Next they stuffed the areas of the body from which organs had been removed, using natron, spices, sawdust, or a mixture of these ingredients. Then they sewed up the cuts they had made in the corpse when removing its insides, and rubbed the body with oil.
World History
