The Egyptians knew that only the magic of the pharaoh and the priests
could carry out supernatural deeds and acts.
It was thanks to that magic that the universal order was maintained.
But its power could also help man to achieve his longed for desire.
The deceased had to be able to reach the world of the gods.
If they thought he had gathered enough merits
they would grant him the much desired eternal life.
But he had to be prepared for the journey.
The ancient Egyptians showed great detachment from earthly life;
they considered it a brief transit on route to eternity.
In order for that to be possible,
the human being had to be prepared for that transit.
Therefore, the Egyptians deducted that the human body
had to be made up by elements that would adapt to both worlds -
some material and others immaterial.
At the beginning of creation,
when the Demiurge creates human beings,
he gives them a body with a series of fundamental elements,
so they can face all their earthly and spiritual needs.
Prof. Dr. Dietrich Wildung
"What we nowadays call the psychosomatic state,
was referred to in ancient Egypt through several terms:
first there was a "Ka", and then a "Ba".
And there's an entity called "Ach"
Some of them are connected to the physical survival after death,
and others to the immortality of the soul.
They're complex visions that differ greatly from our western line of thought
in which we like everything to have its precise name."
The idea of mummification was the same as that of the divine statues in the temples.
The statue served as material support to the worshiped god,
and was a link between the two planes of existence.
In order to establish communication,
his other material self had to be present.
Following that criteria, the Egyptians considered that the earthly body
also had to be preserved eternally by that process,
in order for the spiritual body to ensure its eternity in paradise.
Once embalmed, the deceased had to be prepared for the sacred journey
Prof. Dr. Dietrich Wildung
"In what concerns the burial ceremonies
as they are described in many tombs and papyruses
a crucial act is what is called 'the opening of the mouth'.
The priest symbolically opens the mummified deceased's eyes,
nose and mouth, reviving his senses.
The deceased can once again see
smell
breath and talk.
He regains the ability to use the senses beyond the earthly life,
and that regained ability will work for all eternity.
The deceased can live eternally.
The ceremony would take place in the first courtyard of the tomb,
where a series of purification rituals were carried out.
After that,
a curious dramatization would take place in the sarcophagus room.
One of the priests would play the role of the deceased
and had to be awakened by the deceased's son.
Some interesting ritual instruments were used,
in the shape of adzes, knives and cotton swabs.
They would be taken to the mouth, eyes, ears and other vital parts of the deceased,
in order to revive his capacities in the afterlife.
Once in the afterlife, the deceased had to face the judgment of Osiris
the god of resurrection.
Before forty-two judges, he had to prove his moral integrity;
what is called the negative confession of sins.
Alfonso Martín Flores
"Along with the declaration of innocence of the deceased's judgment,
another important episode that seems to happen in the room of truth,
or in the room of justice,
is the weighing of the heart.
In it, Osiris is standing under a dossal
and there's a scale placed before him in which the heart will be weighed.
Several deities are present, like Horus or Anubis,
whose role is to accompany the deceased up to where the scale and Osiris are."
The weighing of the heart
consisted basically of placing this organ in one of the pans of the scale
and weighing it against the feather of Maat -- the goddess of truth and justice.
If the deceased's sins weighed more than the feather,
he was devoured by Ammit
a monster that was part hippopotamus, part crocodile and part lion.
That entailed spending eternity as a 'non - being',
condemned to the punishment of the Egyptian hell.
If his heart weighed less than the feather,
the deceased was declared justified and blessed.
From that moment on, he would live a placid existence in the afterlife,
alongside Osiris.
The magnificent constructions that we see today along the valley of the Nile
have undoubtedly achieved the purpose of their creators.
The ancient settlers of Egypt loved the earthly life's beauty,
but only as a brief transit en route to the true immortal existence.
To please the gods, they built to their scale,
designed their temples and tombs with mathematical perfection
in their shapes and proportions,
and aligned their contours with the sun
and other heavenly bodies.
Their obsession was to maintain cosmic order at all costs;
they could not permit everything to return to the primeval chaos.
To that end they learned to use language
and the magic power of the gods,
and communicated with them.
They discovered where the sun went at night
and how it managed to come out each morning.
And, most importantly, they discovered how to access the underworld
to be alongside the gods for all eternity.
Magic, science and religion
represent the nature of man.
His way to reveal himself before the terror of nothingness.
The struggle to penetrate the mysteries of his own existence
and those of the universe.
It's a mixture of strange seduction and scary unease
that not only makes him aware of his insignificance,
but also allows him to feel proud
of his humble human condition.