Anubis Speaks!: A Guide to the Afterlife by the Egyptian God of the Dead (16 page)

the jackal-headed god, watched over the stomach and upper intestines; and Qebehsenuef, the hawk-headed god, was in charge of the lower intestines. Nail clippings, hair, and other odds and ends were often kept nearby, just in case the mummy might want or need them in the afterworld.

Step 4—Drying out the Body with Salt

The body was then packed—inside and out—with natron, a type of salt. This salt dried the body, much like the heat dried out bodies in the desert sand. Every step of the way, special spells and ritual prayers were recited. To
me
, of course.

Step 5—Making It All Pretty

After drying, the body was taken to the
per
nefer
, or “the house of beauty.” There, the priests rubbed perfumes, oils, wine, and milk into the leather-like skin to make it easier to work with. In some eras, they stuffed linen, sawdust, and other material inside the body to “plump” it up and make it resemble the person in life. Sometimes small onions were placed in the eye sockets to make it look like the eyeballs were still there.

In other eras, my priests also poured melted resin (gummy, gluey stuff taken from plants) over the entire body, which hardened and sometimes turned the mummy black.

37

Step 6—Wrapping It All Up

Finally came the labor-intensive process of

wrapping it all up. Sacred amulets of protection were tucked inside the many layers of linen strips. It all had to be done right, so my priests spent a lot of time reciting prayers, hymns, and spells (again, most aimed at
me
, naturally) while they worked. It took a lot of fabric too—about five-hundred yards of linen on average. You could stretch one mummy’s linen wrappings the length of about five football fields!

Step 7—Masks and More

My priests often placed a special mask over the mummy’s face. If the body was a pharaoh’s, the mask was usually made of gold. If not, then it was made of linen or papyrus. Finally, it was painted in life-life colors. Masks protected the dead on their journey into the afterlife and also helped the
ka
, or spirit, recognize itself in the next world.

Many mummies were also garlanded with sweet-

smelling flowers, so that the mummy could step into the new life looking pretty and smelling fine.

The entire mummification process took about

seventy days.

Meanwhile, at the end of this third hour, with my dad, Osiris, safely on the boat, a flock of bird-headed gods—all wielding knives—appear and lead us to our next challenge. I like how their magical knives shine 38

in the darkness, don’t you?

Apophis and his minions are in for it now. . . .

Corridor of Death

Hour four

When we enter the fourth cavern, we come to

a dead stop. We’ve run aground. The river is gone! The water has faded away and turned to desert. This is unsettling for us because we Egyptians are most comfortable traveling on water. Deserts give us the creeps.

Still, there’s nothing for it, we must get out of the boat, grab the ropes, and start towing. Dragging the boat over sand is no easy task, but it reminds me of how my people hauled the coffins of the mummified dead on sledges (sleds pulled by animals) through the deserts to their tombs.

We did not use chariots or any other type of wheeled vehicles to transport the dead through the desert, even over long distances. Want to know why?

1.
Imagine riding a super-heavy bike through a desert of soft, dry sand. Too much work, right? Pulling a big chariot with a dead body in a heavy coffin would have been even worse. My people used chariots in the desert to hunt, not to pull the dead.

2.
Traditionally, we used sledges pulled by oxen—or 39

sometimes people—to drag the dead through the desert. We Egyptians liked our traditions. If they worked, we didn’t mess with them.

3.
The sledge was pretty. It was often made to look like Ra’s sun boat for our pharaohs, which symbolized their rebirth. The sledge “boat” started its trip on an actual funeral barge down the Nile. Then the sledge “boat”

moved to the desert sands. That whole sledge-that-looks-like-a-boat-sailing-on-sand was just too cool to change.

4.
Finally, my people were used to dragging heavy things on land. The Nile River is interrupted at several points by cataracts—rocky points creating white-water rapids—which are impossible to sail through. To make it past the cataracts, our sailors dragged their boats over land before launching them back into areas of the Nile where the river ran smooth again. Dragging boats over land was actually familiar to my people.

Devilish Diagonal Alley

As we tow the boat, the cavern starts to get even creepier. Suddenly the passageway slants and zigzags in crazy angles. Is Apophis leading us into a trap?

Wait, what is that mound over there? Oh, it’s just dad’s tomb, the secret place where Osiris’s body rests 40

during the day. Well, it
was
secret, until I pointed it out to you. Don’t tell anybody, okay? We can’t have Apophis finding it and destroying my dad when we’re not looking.

Osiris’s secret tomb is the focal point for all his soul parts. Egyptians believed that humans had many parts of the soul, including the
ka
, which was like your spiritual double, your individual identity. Depicted as two upraised arms, the
ka
was the part of the soul that was nourished by funeral offerings, or the gifts people brought to your tomb.

The
ba
was the part of the soul that could travel, which is why it was depicted as a bird with a human head and human arms. The
akh
, depicted as either an ibis or phoenix, was the transfigured spirit of the soul —the part that joined the blessed dead and the gods in the afterlife. The
akh
could not die and was sometimes described as a radiant, shining being that ascended to the heavens to live with the gods.

Dark Night of the Soul

In this hour, it is the darkest black of the night.

I can’t even see the paw in front of my face!

Fortunately, four men appear to help us tow the boat. They magically turn into serpents that breathe fire, lighting our way as we trudge through the sandy zigzaggy corridor.

As we near the end of this hour, we see a three-41