Religious Influences in Egyptian Funerary Practices
In Ancient Egyptian cultures, death is not the end of their existence. Instead their Earthly death is the beginning of their journey to another life. Through the exploration of Egyptian burials and written history we know that the Egyptians believed in an afterlife.They also had a belief that a person's "soul" was made up of three parts: ka, ba, and akh. The belief in this multiple part soul was what the entire Egyptian religion was based around. It was also seen that the living were responsible for preparing their dead for the Afterlife through active participation during preparation periods.The Egyptians solely believed that death was a transformation period that would land a person into a individualistic setting. There is not much research on commoner burials throughout ancient Egypt but the tombs of the Pharaohs have allowed us an inside look at the importance of body preparation and the implication of death as a journey through hieroglyphics and archaeological studies of mummies. In this section we will discuss the role of religion within the Dynastic period burials. Through the religious beliefs and practices we can see a representation of a van Gennep-ian society where the deceased lay in a liminal state during the body preparation period of their traditional mortuary practices. The Earthly life of a person is their initial state of being. Their death is a rite of separation in which their soul is separated from the physical body to continue on its death journey. After they are laid in their tombs, they await the transformation in the afterlife in search of their "paradise." In this search and set of test from the Gods, the ka will be at the transitional period of the van Gennep theory. Once they have been named "justified" by Osiris, the ka can is now transitioned to it new level of life, the afterlife. This is the final rite of passage, the rite of reincorporation, for the deceased where they are reincorporated into this new world and find new status.