The meaning of the mummification

The mummification process has a lot of words referring to that process. One of the most accurate expressions is “preserving the body “ as it describes accurately what they do in that process.

Another word is “mummification” also we found and it is not an Egyptian word but it is a Latin word that comes from the “mummia”.

Even the word “mummia “ has a Persian origin which means the black color because they noticed in the fifth century B.C that bodies turn into black after mummification.

That process has another word is “embalming”.However, it refers to the material which they used in the mummification process when they sank the body in ” Balsam” in Greek time.

So In my opinion, the most accurate word is “preserving the body” although I use the word mummification.

The philosophy of the mummification process

The ancient Egyptian believed that there are two kinds of death the first and the second. The first means the soul leaves the body for a while and the second means damaging the body.

Moreover, he believed that the god creator shaped humans into two parts the material and the soul.

He believed the material, which is the body, lives in the earth but the soul lives in the sky.

Therefore he tried as much as he could to prevent the material body from damaging in the mummification process.

The body and the soul elements

As the ancient Egyptian wanted to save the material body for the afterlife in the mummification process, so he believed that the material of each one consists of four elements.

They are the body (get), the name (ren), the shadow (show), and the heart( ap). And he had to preserve the body using the mummification process and the name using the cartouch which is an oval shape holding the name.

As for the soul, the ancient Egyptian believed that it consists of three elements. They are ( Ka), (Ba), and ( Akh).

Ka is the spiritual body which the god creator shapes the image of the person from birth till death he lives with everyone.

Ba is the spirit that can fly to heaven and it has a picture of a bird with a human head.

Akh is the immortal with a picture of a whole bird and sometimes a mummy figure.

Going to Luxor city  or the Egyptian museum in Cairo Egypt is a good chance to know a lot about  the mummification process