Ancient Egypt has many legends of the opening of the heavens and the earth, reflecting their simple understanding of all things natural and imaginative, showing their worship of the power of nature. The manufacture of mummies and the construction of pyramids are related to a folk myth and legend in the pre-dynastic era. There was a man named Osiris, the god of all nature, whose father was the god of the sky and his mother was the god of the earth. Osiris taught mankind how to plow and weave, brew wine and make copper, and made the people live a happy life. He was loved by the people and became the king who ruled over them. The power and fame he gained through his wisdom and kindness was envied by his brother Set, who wanted to kill him. Seth let the smiths according to his brother's stature, with gold built a gorgeous and incomparable cabinet, announced: "Whoever lies in it fit, I will give him this golden cabinet!" He purposely got several men larger than the cabinet to lie in it, and none of them fit. Then Seth said to his brother, Osiris, "Brother, surely you can lie in it; this golden ark of great value is worthy only of you." When Osiris just lay into the golden ark, Set immediately called the pre-arranged people to lock and seal the ark, and threw it into the Nile River, and claimed himself as king instead of his brother. Othello's wife Isis was grief-stricken, pursued along the river, and finally found the golden cabinet in the sea at the mouth of the river. Isis then asked the gods to bring her husband back to life. When his brother Set heard of this, he immediately came and, while the gods had not yet brought his brother back to life, chopped him up into 14 more pieces and scattered them all over the place, so that they would soon decay, in case Isis should try to retrieve them again. But Isis took great pains and a long time to retrieve the 14 pieces scattered around again, and again begged the God of Heaven to bring her husband back to life. But the God of Heaven said, "Your husband can no longer return to the earth. I have made him the God of Nature and the King of the Underworld, who will judge newcomers to the Underworld and decide whether or not they will have an eternal afterlife. And let his children and grandchildren succeed him as kings of the people." Isis gave birth to her son Horace while burying her husband's weeping corpse. Isis raised Horace to adulthood. Horace, with the support of the people, defeated Set and avenged his father's death. He inherited his father's throne and became king of Egypt again. The story of the resurrection of Osiris is y rooted in people's minds, not least because the resurrection of Osiris brought great comfort to the people - through the worship of Osiris, the god of the underworld, it was possible for a person to be resurrected after death.
Egypt's unique natural environment also fueled the ancient Egyptians' hopes for an afterlife. The Nile River flooded and receded regularly every year, and the corresponding plants flourished and withered, and the sun rose and set every day, and these natural phenomena gave the ancient Egyptians the idea that the world is cyclical, and that everything in nature can be resurrected from the dead, and so should human beings. In order to prepare for the resurrection in the afterlife, the body had to be well preserved, as Isis had done for her husband. For without a corpse, there is nothing for the immortal soul to cling to after death, and man cannot be reborn. Under this view of the afterlife, the custom of mummifying corpses prevailed in ancient Egypt.
More than 20 years ago, a woman's body from the Western Han Dynasty was unearthed at Mawangdui in Changsha, China, and has been preserved underground for more than 2,000 years, still intact. At that time, the embalming techniques used by the Chinese had reached a high level.
Ancient Egypt, which is the cradle of world civilization together with China, liked to make dry corpses, or mummies, of the bodies of kings or ministers to be preserved at a very early stage, which could not be done without a high level of medical science. Unlike ancient China, make dry body in ancient Egypt even form a kind of trend, this is why?
In ancient Egypt, there is a moving myth and legend. A long time ago, Osiris, the son of the earth god Seb, was so capable that he was once the king of Egypt (pharaoh). He taught people to engage in agricultural production, such as farming, making bread, brewing wine, mining, and brought happiness to people. Therefore, people worshipped him and regarded him as the god of the Nile, and people's lives were given by Osiris. He had a younger brother named Set, who had bad intentions and plotted to kill his brother and take the throne.
One day, Set invited his brother **** to dinner, and found many people to accompany him. During the meal, Set pointed to a large, beautiful chest and said to the group, "Whoever can lie in this chest will give it to him." Osiris, egged on by the crowd, tried it in front of everyone. But as soon as he lay in, Set closed the chest, locked it, and threw him into the Nile.
After Osiris was murdered, his wife Isis, the goddess of rain, searched everywhere and finally recovered the body. Unexpectedly, this was known to Set. He stole the body again in the middle of the night, cut it into 14 pieces and threw them in different places. Isis again found broken pieces of Osiris' body from various different places and buried it on the spot.
Then Horace, Osiris' surviving son, was born, and he grew up to be very brave. When he grew to manhood, he defeated Set, avenged his father's death, and inherited the earthly throne. He dug up the pieces of his father's body from all over the world, put them together and made a dry body "mummy". With the help of the gods, he brought his father back to life.
Osiris's resurrection was not a resurrection on earth, but a resurrection in the underworld. In the other world, he became a lord, specializing in the judgment of the dead and protecting Pharaoh on earth.
This myth began to circulate in folklore. Later, the Egyptian Pharaoh heard it and used it to deceive the people by saying that Pharaoh had the help of the gods and was therefore a ruler in life and still a ruler in death. Whoever opposed Pharaoh would be punished while he was alive and would not be able to pass the netherworldly judgment of Osiris without difficulty after death.
Since then, every Egyptian pharaoh had to act out the myth of Osiris after his death. The first step was to perform a body-hunting ritual. The second point is to hold a cleansing ceremony, that is, the body dissected, remove the internal organs and bone marrow, made of dried corpse "mummy". Specifically, the body is first immersed in an embalming fluid, which dissolves the grease and washes off the skin. 70 days later, the body is taken out and dried. In the cavity filled with spices, outside coated with gum, so as not to expose the body to air and bacteria, and then wrapped the body tightly with cloth. In this way, the long-lasting "mummy" is made. The third step is to recite a mantra to open the eyes, nose, ears and mouth of the "mummy" and put food into its mouth. It is said that the mummy will be able to breathe, speak and eat like a living person. Finally, there is the burial ceremony, where the "mummies" are put into sarcophagi and sent to their graves, the "eternal dwelling" that they operated for themselves during their lifetime.
The ancient Egyptians had the idea of the immortality of the soul at a very early stage. They regarded death as a continuation of "life" in another world, and were therefore keen on making dry bodies and repairing graves. They used salt water, spices, anointing oil, linen and other things to soak the body into a "mummy", and then placed in an airtight tomb, it can last for a long time. Deeply hidden in the tomb will not rot the body, quietly waiting for the soul of the dead to come back to cling to the body.
Ancient Egyptians also realized that the resurrection of man could only take place in the underworld, not on earth. Consequently, the reunion of the body with the soul could not bring the person back to the human world, but could only live in the deep underground palace. As the ruler of the slave owners in order to meet the needs of their own life after death, not hesitate to use all the country's human, material and financial resources to build tombs, pyramids are in this situation. The tombs must also be furnished with all kinds of living things in life, so that the dead can easily enjoy them.
"Mummy" production, mixed with some mysterious and superstitious things, on the "mummy" production itself, it reflects the achievements of the level of ancient Egyptian medicine. In the process of making "mummies", the Egyptians accumulated a lot of anatomical knowledge, the initial understanding of the relationship between human blood circulation and heart function, as well as the brain's important role in the human body. Today can see the "Edwin Smith papyrus" is the most important medical literature of ancient Egypt. Discovered in the 1860s by a man named Edwin Smith, this medical work was copied around 1600 B.C., with the most ancient parts dating back to the Middle Kingdom period. The first half of the papyrus systematically recounts the structure of the human body, much like today's human anatomy, and lists 48 cases, categorized as curable, incurable, or incurable, with detailed descriptions of the symptoms. Unfortunately, the second half has been lost. In sculptures from around 2500 BC, images of doctors performing surgical operations at that time can be seen. All these show that ancient Egyptian medicine had reached a high level. Ancient Egyptian medical achievements are directly related to their anatomical corpses, the production of "mummies".