Why did the ancient Egyptians mummify people? [3 Reasons]

Why the heck did the ancient Egyptians go through the elaborate process of preserving their dead through mummification? By the end of this video you'll know the three reasons why the ancient Egyptians spent a lot of time and money to preserve their bodies after death. Welcome to Voices of Ancient Egypt where we demystify the words and lives of the ancient Egyptians through animated videos like this one. If you're new here I'd love to have you subscribe and hit that bell icon so you don't miss future videos like this one. Hi everyone, thanks for joining me today where we'll be diving into the topic of why the ancient Egyptians preserved their dead through a drying process that we now call mummification. So let's jump right in to the three reasons why they did this. One, the ancient Egyptians feared death. Contrary to popular belief the ancient Egyptians were actually not obsessed with death but rather they feared it and were obsessed with overcoming death and reaching an afterlife where they could live forever. Preserving the body by drying it out what we now call mummification helped a person reach the afterlife. They did this because the preserved body could continue to act as a home base for a couple of the parts of the person called the ka and the ba. The ka and the ba could separate from the body after death but they needed the body or an image of the person such as a statue to act as a home base after death. This would allow the person to make the difficult journey through the afterlife and be able to live there forever. When the mummified body acted as a home base it also was a link to the tomb, to the living and to the offerings that the living would bring. Two, everyone wanted to be like Osiris. Osiris was an ancient Egyptian god who was the first recorded in mythology to die and then be reborn into the afterlife. To be able to do this his wife the goddess Isis had to prepare and restore his body along with the help of her sister Nephthys and the god Anubis. Once Osiris's body was repaired and wrapped up like a mummy Isis was then able to bring Osiris back to life so that he could become the eternal king of the afterlife. Osiris was the model for all ancient Egyptians. If they imitated the process that he went through they could also be reborn into the afterlife. So being preserved and wrapped up during mummification basically imitated the same process that Osiris went through and therefore helped them live on into the afterlife. Are these reasons for mummification making sense so far? If so let me know by writing mummy in the comments below. Three, to buy more time. Now this one is a bit more speculative than the previous two reasons but mummification did allow your family more time to prepare the tomb and to prepare for your funeral both of which could be really elaborate if you were rich. The ideal length of time for embalming including both drying out and wrapping the body was 70 days. However there are documented cases of people being buried much later than 70 days after death even as long as 500 days. Egyptologists have sometimes speculated that these extended amounts of time might have been due to needing to buy more time to be able to complete the tomb. So now that you know the three reasons for mummification would you want to be mummified after death? Let me know by answering the poll in the top right hand corner. Also does mummification still seem weird to you? Do you still have some questions about it? Let me know in the comments below. I can't wait to chat with you there and of course you can also connect with me on Instagram and Facebook. To learn more about ancient Egypt click on one of the videos linked at the bottom of the screen and if you want to dive even deeper check out the recommended books in the video description below. If you like this video let me know by giving it a thumbs up and share it with all of your friends who love ancient Egypt too. Also be sure to click that subscribe button and hit the bell so that you won't miss future videos like this one. Thanks for watching and see you next time.