Death and Burial in Ancient Egypt
Death and Burial in Ancient Egypt
To every Egyptian death was seen as a desirable transformation, ‘the passage of the true eternal life’ (Guide to The Valley of The Kings page 159, 1996). Death in no instance was considered a tragedy or an end but as a welcomed transition into the Afterlife. As death was of such an importance it was necessary that great care be taken for a smooth transition to immortality, this is a major reason that the Pharaohs contents of the tomb were of such importance. Egyptians emphasis on the importance of rituals, customs and beliefs as well as funerary architecture can be seen clearly in the discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
The planning that went into every Pharaohs tomb was extremely complex, as each tomb was significantly different in terms of the tombs layout and wall decorations. The tombs structure and layout had to somehow reflect the formation and projection of the solar star. Wall decorations in the tomb don’t represent the Pharaohs everyday life but that of their Afterlife and the challenges the Pharaoh has to undertake in order to reach the Kingdom of Orisis - land of the Afterlife. So these beliefs are reflected on the style of decorations featured in the tombs from imitations of papurus to elaborate texts painted on the walls throughout the tomb. These sacred texts were taken from great magical religious anthologies of the time that one died, and were regarded to as ‘sacred architecture’ (Guide to The Valley of the Kings page 26, 1996).
Many tombs have been destroyed over the years, but historians have classified tombs into five types, such as the simple pit-graves, Mastaba tomb, Rock-cut chapels, Pyramid tombs and Mortuary chapel tombs. Pit graves were the simplest forms of burial and were more common in the poorer society in Egypt, and were still seen later on in the 20th Dynasty. It consisted of a hole in the ground that was a fraction longer then that of the deceased, and was covered with a number of bricks which were also used to line the walls of the pit. The other more complex type of tomb was that of the Mortuary Chapel tomb which featured later on in the Egyptian tomb development. These were introduced later in the Egyptian tomb development, and represented...