Mummification

Mummification

The word “mummy” derives from the middle age Latin expression mumia which is a borrowing from the Persian word mum meaning “bitumen” that was believed to have been used in the embalming process. The original Egyptian expression for a mummy was sakh which meant “to activate the akh” – the invisible carrier of the soul.

A mummy is a desiccated body, either human or animal, prepared and preserved by means of the process called “mummification” or “mummifying”. Egyptians developed and implemented mummification processes over three thousand years throughout the duration of their civilisation. For them, this process was directly connected to their mythical-eschatological view of the world.

It was a ritual procedure whereby the soul of the deceased was granted eternal life in the invisible world of the Duat, as it was described in Egyptian texts. A person whose body was not mummified would be destined to dying “a second time” and would be deprived of life after death.