Picture courtesy of © Sylvain Grandadam—Stone/Getty Images
Two of the biggest things to prepare for a person's Afterlife is the pyramid and the mummy. This was especially important for a king.
The Pyramid:
The pyramid was quite a complex structure. The king's pyramid started being built when the king took the throne. The pyramid, geometrically speaking, a polyhedron, was shaped because the Egyptians believed it represented the Ben-Ben stone, that was located in Re, the sun god's, temple.
After all the organs were removed, except the heart, of course, the corpse can be cleaned. The entire corpse and removed organs were washed with alcohol. The organs were placed in jars, and the body was coated with salt to dry it out.
Without any organs, the body looked different then it did when the person was living. To make the deceased look more like they were living , the body was stuffed with more cloth and sawdust. This would make it easier for the ka and ba to find the body.
After the body was stuffed, it was dressed in clothes for the Afterlife. It was decked out in jewels and robes, then the whole body was wrapped in linen.
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Once the body has been mummified, it can be placed in a series of coffins. Often one coffin was placed in a bigger coffin, then that coffin was able to be placed in an even larger coffin, and so on. The coffin could also be called a sarcophagus. Then the sarcophagus was carried to the pyramid, all belongings that the person would need for the Afterlife were placed in the pyramid, and it was sealed forever. |