لخّصلي

Ancient Egyptian funerary rituals centered on the belief in resurrection, achieved primarily through mummification throughout the Pharaonic period to preserve the body for the afterlife. Greeks, encountering this practice, adopted aspects, though retaining their own beliefs about incarnation and avoiding bodily mutilation. Later, Romans also embraced Egyptian funerary practices, leading to mummification becoming more widespread, commercially driven, and a status symbol rather than solely a religious act. Specialized embalmers and "givers of water" conducted these services. The Ptolemaic and Roman periods saw mummification expand beyond the elite, resulting in overcrowded tombs and reuse of older ones, as evidenced by discoveries at Deir el-Madineh and the Valley of the Queens. Mummification techniques evolved from simple desiccation in sand during the Predynastic period (5000-3200 BC), where bodies were wrapped in linen and buried in shallow graves, to the removal of internal organs starting in the Fourth Dynasty, initially for royalty, using natron and later canopic jars. Subsequent techniques involved hollowing the body and stuffing it with resin-soaked linen, with facial features painted green, a color associated with resurrection. In the Old Kingdom, methods included wrapping in linen bandages, sometimes with plaster to maintain the body's shape.

The idea of the Ancient Egyptians of the resurrection was the base of the funerary rituals. The base of these rituals was the mummification during all the Pharaonic periods; therefore, the Ancient Egyptian tried in every way to keep his body intact in order to be capable of practicing his life after death.
When the Greeks came to Egypt, they found the habit of the mummification spread. As long as the hope of the Greeks was to keep their bodies after death, they were fascinated with this technique. However, the Greeks continued using the incarnation and prevented the cut of any part of the human body.
The Greeks and after them the Romans adopted the Egyptian funerary believes and rituals. Thus, the mummification became widespread in these periods more than it was in the Pharaonic period, and was practiced in a commercial way rather than a religious one.
This ritual became also a factor that represents the wealth of the deceased rather than represents his faith in the ritual.
There were the specialized embalmers and group of half priests known as the giver of the water, whom the family of the deceased made contact with to do the funerary service.
The Ptolemaic and the Roman periods are distinguished with the spread of using the mummification between the publics, as the mummification was only used by the rich people during the Pharaonic period. This led to the crowdedness of the tombs and the reopening the old ones. Many unknown mummies were found in the tombs of the New Kingdom at Deir el-Madineh and the valley of the queens.
2. Development of technique
The techniques of the mummification are developed starting from the Predynastic period till the Roman period.
The ancient Egyptians didn't mummify their bodies in the Predynastic period; therefore their bodies were just skeletons. The deceased was wrapped simply in a leather of a linen bandage, then, placed in a shallow grave in the sand in a squatting position. This happened precisely between 5000-3200 BC. The studies proved that these bodies were never treated never treated with any chemicals, because the hot sand that the body was placed in was capable of dehydrating the body.
When the Egyptians buried their dead, they buried them in the desert in order not to be drowned by the inundation.
The grave was just a simple pit in which the body was placed facing the west.
Examples:
1- A mummy represents the beginning of the burial in ancient Egypt. It is from Naqada and dated back to 3600-3200 BC. The body was placed in the Egyptian desert for more than 5000 years in a pit covered with sands and surrounded with stones. Some jars were found surrounding the body and accompanied with a ballet used to squash the cosmetics to be used in the life after death. The mummy is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts (Inv. 11488).
2- Another mummy found at Geblein and dated back to 3400 BC. This mummy was named Ginger. The mummy belongs to a person whose toes were still intact except one that was disappeared from the British Museum in March 1900 during the first exhibition of the mummy.
The mummy is 1.63 cm tall. The mummy is preserved in the British Museum (Inv. 32751).
The same technique continued to be used till the end of the Third dynasty. The development occurred starting from the Fourth dynasty, when the Egyptians realized the importance of extracting the inner Viscera to prevent the body from being decayed. An alabaster box was found in the tomb of queen Hetepheres I, mother of King Khufu.
This box contains the viscera of the queen wrapped in linen and soaked in Natron. However, it seems that this technique was limited to the Kings." The Canopic jars were used by the lower classes during the Fifth and Sixth dynasties. Starting from the Fourth dynasty the Egyptians began to bury their dead stretched rather than being squatted.
The mummies were hollowed from inside and stuffed with linen soaked in Resin. The facial features were drawn with green color, the color that was associated with resurrection.
There were two ways of preserving the body in the Old Kingdom 2650-2510 BC:

• Linen and plaster
  The body was wrapped in linen bandages, the fingers and toes were wrapped separately. The Plaster was placed on the face and the body to maintain the human shape. However, the body was just a skeleton under this bandage.