DEATH IN
ANCIENT EGYPY

The Beginning
The great pyramids at Giza are old, very old, even from an Egyptian point of view. They belong to the Old Kingdom. But it is also under that age that the forerunner to the pyramid was developed. During the first two dynasties of Egyptian history (3200-2780 B.C.) there was definitely no pyramids. There was no need to do anything on such grand a scale, and besides there is doubtful they would have known how, had they wanted to. Instead the pharaohs and their queens, and other important persons were buried in mastabas.

The mastaba is a stone structure which has derived it’s name from an Arabic word for bench. They were erected to protect burials made in chambers in the sand in the desert, and at the same time protect the belongings that had accompanied the dead to the grave. The structure was made from mud-bricks and with it’s flat top it looks like a big box. The archaeologists believe that they were once painted and had paneling, which could be an imitation of the houses of the living.

The next step in the development was taken by the first pharaoh in the third dynasty, Djoser (or Zoser, as some books have it), who reigned 2663-2645 B.C.. His architect, Imhotep, actually built a series of mastabas on top of each other, which resulted in the famous step-pyramid. This was erected at Saqqara (Giza) in Lower Egypt.This step-pyramid was a new development in several ways. It was a quite new form, despite it’s origins, and it was made of stone instead of mudbricks – a necessary step to take if one wanted to make structures like this one. It was also a manifestation of the pharaoh’s growing power. It was a great project to complete and the stone had to be taken there from Upper Egypt and Nubia.

The Pyramids
The pyramids are the oldest of the seven wonders of the world, and the only one still standing. But there are actually as many as around 80 pyramids today, but it is just three of them that are really famous – the three big ones on the Giza plateau. They were commissioned by the fourth dynasty (about 2600-2500 B.C.) pharaohs: Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. Their more famous names, Cheops, Chefren and Mycerinus, are Greek. The reason they are famous is that the person in ancient times who recorded the facts was a Greek, Herodotus (born 484 B.C.). But the first real pyramid was done for the first ruler of the fourth dynasty: Sneferu.

This first one soon stood in the shadow, in both senses of the expression, of his follower Khufu’s pyramid. That pyramid is still the greatest of them all. His follower Khafre chose to make his a bit smaller, but he also saw to the making of the Sphinx – the great lion with a pharaoh’s head (or more exactly Khafre’s). Menkaure’s pyramid is the smallest of the three, it was probably never even finished, probably due to the pharaohs untimely death.

The Egyptian pyramids are impressive still to this day, and it is easy to imagine it had taken a lot of work, money and organisation to make. This meant that the land had to be rich and they had a surplus of workers. There is a lack of sources on who actually built these magnificent structures. Historians have debated, and still do, if it was slaves or farmers when the land was flooded. But most historians today seem to agree that free men, peasants, did it, during the time they couldn’t work on their own land anyway. ‘Free’ was anyway a rather misleading term as everything and everyone in Egypt belonged to the divine pharaoh.

But the grand pyramid building ended almost as soon as it had started. Pyramids continued to be constructed throughout Egypt’s ancient history, but on a much smaller scale. The great pyramids must have taken it’s toll on the economy and already the next dynasty had to settle for a smaller scale and building material of a lesser quality. This means there is nothing but rubble is left of them today. This also meant the beginning of the next phase of Egyptian burials. The emphasis was now laid on the inside of the tombs. It wasn’t only the pharaohs and their families that wanted a grand burial, it was something for anyone who could pay.

The Valley of Kings
The New Kingdom, beginning in the 17th century B.C., meant a new phase in burial customs. The capital had now moved to Thebe and the burials took place in a sandy desert valley, nowadays named The valley of kings. Before the temples of the dead had been close to the graves but now they had separated. The burials in the valleys were cut into the rocks and built in a way to make it impossible for plunderers to reach them (this, of course, proved to be vain anyway, but the promise of gold and riches is a strong temptation for people). Now the only thing left in these chambers are the paintings on the walls, if not counting the innumerable antiques that has reached collectors and museums all other the world during the last 200 years but which former location today is unknown. The one exception being Tutanchamun’s burial, found in 1922 by Howard Carter.

Tutanchamun’s claim to fame is almost only that his tomb was untouched by robbers – and that he was the son of Achenaton (the pharaoh who tried to take the power from the priests by starting a new religious cult, devoted to the disc of the sun) and Nefertiti, famous for her beauty. He himself was a minor king who died young without achieving much. But for today’s history he is invaluable, as his tomb is the only untouched ever found. One can only guess how those of the more powerful pharaohs, like the Ramses, would have looked like.

The Dead
The Egyptians had quite a lot of rituals associated with the death of a person. Death was very present even among the living as it was something that had to be prepared very carefully. The whole point of the affair was to come alive again on the other side. It was therefore that it was so very important what people had in their tombs, they had to take everything with them that they might need in the next life. In the beginning the really important persons had been accompanied by other persons, but after a while this custom stopped and they made models of people instead to take with them. These models would spring to life once in the next life. It was also important to have food and everything else one might need.

This view of death, as only the first step on a journey to a new life helps to understand the art of mummification. It was necessary to preserve the body as it was going to be used again. This also explains why other things got mummified to, like cats and even crocodiles.

For the Egyptians death was not the end, it was just the beginning of a new life.