Primary History with 'A History of the World'

Making a mummy

You are looking at the face of a priest from Ancient Egypt.

His name was Hornedjitef, and he was a priest at the Temple of Amun at Karnak. He died about 220 BC, and was buried at Thebes. This is his mummy mask.

As part of elaborate funeral arrangements, the mask was placed over a dead person's head, like a helmet.

The Ancient Egyptians made mummies of dead bodies, to preserve them and make sure that a person's spirit or 'ba' moved on into the afterlife.

Making a mummy took seventy days. During the process, some body parts including the brain were removed and placed in jars; the body was treated with salt and chemicals. The treatment dried the body to stop decay.

The finished mummy was wrapped in linen cloth, and the painted mask put over the face, before the last funeral rites. It was then put into a coffin, and buried in a tomb.

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Older than he looks

The face on Hornedjitef's mask is that of a young man with golden skin.

This is not a picture of Hornedjitef in life. It's him as a god in the afterlife. When the priest died, he was an old man.

Scientists examined this mummy with a CT scanner, and found signs of arthritis and other 'ageing' problems in the bones - Hornedjitef probably walked stiffly, perhaps with a stick.

Around the brow of the mask is a magic spell, put there to make sure that the head would not be separated from the body after death. Egyptians feared that if this did happen, a dead person might not make the journey to the afterlife and join the gods.

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Hornedjitef

Hornedjitef was an important person.

In Ancient Egypt, priests were the only people, apart from the king, allowed into temples to carry out sacred rituals (religious ceremonies) every day. One of the priests' tasks was to wash and 'feed' temple statues of Egypt's gods.

Because of his high rank, Hornedjitef was almost certainly given a splendid funeral, and his mummy was made with special care.

It wasn't only people who were mummified. The Egyptians also made mummies of ibises (birds), cats, crocodiles and gazelles.

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