A journey through the ancient egyptian underworld
Friday, November 19, 2010
What is a Ba?
You guys probably think that a Ba is something that a sheep does but actually the Egyptians believe it's the part of your body that travels when you sleep. So what they're trying to say is that when you think you're dreaming your Ba is actually traveling around sort of weird to take in if you ask me. Also some Egyptians believe that when you sleep the Egyptian gods can talk to you through your Ba when you're dreaming. Although the idea of a Ba is a pretty neat idea I still think i would stick to the idea of dreaming.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
What Possesions were Ancient Egyptian Pharoahs Buried with?
Like I told you about in my earlier postings you probably know that Egyptians are buried with canopic jars and a book of the dead. Though did you know that the Egyptians were buried with their favorite possessions. I'm glad they don't do that now because I doubt I would be able to fit my first car into my grave. Some things Pharaohs would be buried with is gold, gold, and more gold! Sometimes pharoahs would even get gold artificial fingers and toes to put over their own fingers and toes. Also the Egyptian Pharaohs had a gold covering that resembled their body inside of their sarcophagus. Although it isn't quite as shocking as what somepeople in ancient Mesopotamia did in having people buried with them I still think this is taking it to the extreme.
Why did Egyptians think canopic jars were so sacred
Everyone has probably seen a picture of some kind of canopic jars and didn't think much about it. Though do you actually know what they were used for back in ancient egyptian times. You're probally thinking what does this have to do with egyptian after life but just hang with me. As many of you probly know is that the Egyptians mummified their dead after they die. As you might know is that the whole point of mummification is to take all liquid out of the body so that the body doesn't rot. So that includes taking out all your organs and pouring salt and other preservatives on them until they shrivel up I know that may sound gross but you have to do what you have to do. You might be wondering what the egyptians do to the body after they dried it up well they can't simply throw it away. Well this is where the canopic jars come in at they put the organs in the canopic jars then place them in the sarcophagus. Why do you think they keep them well simply because the Egyptians believe that your new body in your afterlife will need all of your organs.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
What excactly is the weighing of the heart ceremony
Well the weighing of the heart ceremony is the final test to get into the Egyptian underworld. There's a lot of major gods for example Osiris, Anubis, and Thoth just to name a few of them. Basiclly what they do is they put your heart on one side of the scale and the so called feather of truth on the other side of the scale. If you ask me i don't think that's very fair if you ask me because everyone knows that a feather weighs less than a heart even if u were a saint you're whole life. After you complete the ceremony you're free to go on to you're afterlife if you pass that is. If you don't you're heart is eaten by the devourer there forth your afterlife is over.
to do list to make it to the egyptian afterlife
The Egyptian gods must be really picky people because if want to have any chance of making it to the afterlife you have to do a wide variety of things. One thing that your forced to do if you want to get to have life after death is show devotion to the gods by worshiping at their temples and giving offerings. Also they had to have a special burial. Every egyptian who wanted in the afterlife had to be mummified and all of their organs had to be dried out and fit into canopic jars I dont know about you but i'm not to fond of the idea of someone taking out all of my organs and pouring salt on them to dry them. They had to go through that process because the egyptians believed that once all of your organs rotted your afterlife was over. Egyptians also had to pass the weighing of the heart ceremony to move on to the next part of the afterlife. Finally each Egyptian had to be buried with a book of the dead which is a group of spells that is used to give you safe passage through the bad parts of the underworld
Egyptian Rulers of the Underworld
Everyone probably dreams of ruling over the world but what about ruling the underworld doesn't sound quite as fun does it. So you can probably understand how Osiris was feeling he was ruler of the world and all of a sudden his jealous brother Set came and killed him. His wife tried her best to save him but couldn't. So that's how the once ruler of the world Osiris got trapped ruling the underworld. Though Osiris wasn't able to get to rule the underworld on his own he had help from many other Egyptian gods. Just a few of those are Thoth who records all of the people who come to the weighing of the heart ceremony. Then there's my personal favorite Anubis who is the god of mummification and his pet the devourer whose job is to devourer the peoples hearts whose heart outweighs the feather of truth.
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