Ancient Egypt historical beliefs and practices.
Ancient Egypt was known for many iconic historical beliefs and practices. One of them is the practice of mummification. Egyptians mummified their dead during burials due to their religious beliefs. Nonetheless, contrary to what many people assume, there was not a standard practice for Egyptian burials. As with most things (like their gods, for example), their burial rituals changed and improved as time passed. Still, a lot of elements remained the same.
The burial procedure, for the ancient Egyptians, was essential because they believed in life after death, where the dead would go on into a world like the ones they inhabited. When they were buried, their material belongings, the ones that were believed to be essential when they continued on with their life, are buried with them. Essentially, however, they have to preserve their bodies in order to preserve parts of their souls. These parts-the ka (which is the soul) and the ba (the personality)-were preserved with the body, enabling them to live their lives even when they have passed on. These two, in turn, would combine with the spiritual representation of the person's human body, known as the akh. Only then will there be life after death. If the body of the deceased was not preserved, this would not be possible.
This is why the mummification process was important, since it preserves the body and defies the natural decay of the deceased. The process was somewhat perfected during the New Kingdom. Here, the priest, the one who performs the mummification, slits the abdomen, from there, he removes the internal organs to slow down the rate of decay of the body. Among all the body parts, the innards are the ones that decay the fastest. However, they are not disregarded completely; rather, organs such as the lungs, the stomach and the intestines were mummified individually and placed in canopic jars. The heart remained in the body of the deceased but the brain was removed (since they didn't know it was an essential body part).
After removing the innards, the body was placed in a mixture called natron, which is basically table salt and baking soda. This helped the body dehydrate, preventing further decay. After this, the body was wrapped using several layers of the iconic linen strips, perhaps to protect the body from any external damage and elements. Furthermore, magic amulets were placed with the body to ward off evil spirits.
Only when these procedures were completed would the body be buried. The whole family of the deceased delivered the body into the tomb. Overall, the whole process took 70 days.
The burial procedures, however, ultimately, changed as time progressed. It was during the 19th and 20th Dynasty when people began giving individual tombs to the elite. A period after this, mass burial tombs became normal. As it is, the way people were buried was a sign of social differences between the rich and the poor. During the earlier parts of the beginning of this practice, for instance, the middle class (or whatever the equivalent of the middle class was in ancient Egypt) practiced a less elaborate process for natural preservation.
As the New Kingdom passed, people took less and less time to preserve the bodies, reducing the 70 day preparation period. Mainly, this is because they had made improvements in the techniques used to preserve the body. Also, instead of the internal preparations, more and more people took time to make the body more aesthetically, physical beautiful-which is why many of the mummies you see in popular culture are adorned with jewelry and all sorts of accessories and paintings. Because of this, mummies during the Late Period were ill-prepared and badly preserved.