Mummify My Body

Many would call me an expert, and I surely must agree. I may not succeed as any Howard Carter or Zahi Hawass, but studying Egyptology pertaining to the seven step process of mummification happens to act as my niche. With my room filled with books of ancient Egypt, the subject over the years became one of my pleasures in life. Diving into the books, I almost feel and sense my own self a mummified person, and it amazes me. The process of mummification comes about as the way that I want my body preserved after I die. Many may call it weird, but I call it a dream which I shall plan out every step until I lie underneath the warm, hot desert sand in Egypt.

The announcement of the death comes first. Once somebody finds the dead body, they must go and tell somebody about it. Usually in the ancient Egyptian days, a messenger got sent out so that everybody around could prepare for the mourning that the people will cry out and also get themselves prepared for the ceremony.  The faster that society knows the better and faster the mourning process will begin.

Embalm the body. Most may recognize the word embalm because we keep the process going in today’s society. Embalming involves a process that must come complete so that the body will not decay while buried. Before proceeding to this, if the mouth or eyes are open the embalmer must close them. Remove any internal fluids, including blood and inject special chemicals. Injecting the chemicals helps to get any clotting out and as you the chemicals inject it into the veins, it helps get any of that fluid dried up and out of the way. Then you clean the body with water and wine.

A critical step to pay attention to comes next. The body will lay naked and set on some kind of board. Take the brain out through the nose with a hook. A fish hook will work in today’s world.  Many people will not get all of the brain out but most of it will ooze out, just like worms covered with mud. After that, because chunks of the brain still remain within the nose, take as much water as you needed and clean out the nose. Tip the head back a little bit and take a sponge brush to sweep the inside of the nose by hand.  Throw all of the brain away for no importance comes of it. After the nose comes sparkly clean, the empty place where the brain no longer remains will fill up with a mixture of linen and resin which you will put in using a spoon and a long, skinny stick.  

Now you will cut open the chest with a sharp, shark like knife and main organs are removed. This includes the liver, intestines, lungs and stomach. Take a knife and make a shallow cut into the chest as if dissecting a animal of some sort. Take all of the organs out except the heart. After removed, the organs are stored in four different canopic jars representing the four sons of Horus. Put the organs in as you go while moving along so that the organs will stay protected within their jars, and seal the lid. Slightly different procedures are used depending on the time period in Egyptian history.

Dry out the body. Place the body back onto the bored or wherever it already lays, and cover it with natron salt. Strap the body on and tilt the body a little bit so that any sort of water would come off the body and into a dish. This drying out will prevent any rotting of the body so that the body can stay in its normal life-like form for many years without fading away. This process takes about forty days. At this time, with two hands, fill up the body with linen or sawdust in order to keep the body firm. During the forty days, the body will lay in its current position until the workers come back. Always check on the body once a week to make sure that nothing goes wrong.

Wrap the body. Place the body so that it lay flat and wrap the body with strips of linen. Because there remains a lot of linen to wrap onto the body, this could take a few weeks. Wrap the head first, and then the neck. The fingers and toes come next. and lastly the arms and legs. The arms and legs are wrapped lastly because when they are finished, they are tied together and a scroll with special spells for the dead are placed within the linen so that they are protected from any evil that may prevail. Lay amulets or any kind of jewels within the linen also, these help keep evil away. After every part of the body lay in linen, spray with fragrant oils and say prayers over the body. Then place a sheet over the body until the next day.

The final step to the wonderful process of mummification comes out as the opening of the mouth and the weighing of the heart. A priest must accompany the opening of the mouth. If a priest cannot accompany this procedure, the dead cannot eat, see, hear nor move in the next world. Take the person, stand the body up, throw incense on it to make them smell like freshly cut flowers and then the priest will take special tools to keep the mouth open so that things could enter, and air could go out and come in so that the dead could breathe as if they are still alive and well. After performing the opening of the mouth, the weighing of the heart takes place. During this time the heart comes out of the body. Get a scale and a feather for this task. Put the feather on the scale, weigh it and record it. Next, put the heart onto the scale. If the heart happens to weigh less than a feather then your heart and soul could move onto the afterlife. If the heart levels out heavy with sin and weighs more than the feather a God, most likely Ammut will appear and eat the body and its heart up. After finished with this, put the mummy mask onto the head and put the body into its sarcophagus or coffin and wait until the procession of the funeral into the final resting place happens which will begin days later.

Altogether this seven step process will take around seventy days. Some people might think of this process as crazy, but it helps many people. It lets the mourners get plenty of time to mourn without worrying hesitantly to get the funeral procedure ready right away and also the person that died because their body will forever live on and not decay as fast. Look at all of the mummies that we can still identify today? Many years down the road, the body of a loved one could become famous for being mummified and protected from decaying. Others who lay dead for a long time without the mummification process will leave nothing in their coffins because they are not protected to stay in preservation for more than a few plus years. Mummies from the ancient Egyptian days lay well preserved in Egypt and we are able to tell many facts about these people that we would not know if the Egyptians never came up with mummification.

Now that an expert wrote down this procedure for the world, dive in and explore the world of mummification. Go and wonder in fascination at the findings. Studying the ways to protect the dead comes together as a magnificent and wonderful process that everybody can enjoy. No extraordinaire like Howard Cater and Zahi Hawass who lived longer and studied this subject for years, but I believe that I teach well at what I learned throughout my ten years of studying Egyptology. “Mummify my body!” I exclaim every day. There comes a joy to life and a joy to death. The glass can tip both ways, half full and half empty. Choose to fill up the glass or sink the glass down when the resting time of comes into play.