Description(wikipedia, July 2011)
The picture is showing the Book of the Dead from Egypt. The Book of the Dead is actually the modern name for an ancient Egyptian funerary text. The original Egyptian name for the text was translated as ''Book of coming forth by day". According to the archaeologists, this text contains some magic spells which intended to assist a dead person's journey through the underworld or Duat which they called last time and then the spells can help the dead's journey to the afterlife. This book is one of the funerary text which included the earlier Pyramid texts and coffin texts. The texts in the book was written in hieroglyphs form. These text was then written on a papylus scroll. After the book was done, it was then placed in a coffin of a dead person laying inside. Then the spells in the book were then believed that they were functioning to assist the dead on his/ her journey to the afterlife. A few spells which were written in the book was also inscribed on tomb walls and the sarcophagus a.k.a the funearal receptacle for the corpse which was carved out from stone. The sarcophagus was the coffin for the Pharaoh.
The Book of the Dead is composed of many illustrations and also texts. Currently, 192 spells are known at present and each of the respective spells serve different purposes. The Book of the Dead depict the Egyptian beliefs about the nature and the afterlife. In the text, the Egyptian believed that after a person die, if let the dead undergo the process of mummification, the spirits, souls and body of the dead will be well preserved. And they believed that the physical body of the dead will be ready to transform into a Sah, an idealised form with divine aspects. Besides, there is also spells which protect the Heart of the dead. Something else like the heart scarab is often buried as a replacement of the heart. The Ba, which was a free-ranging spirit aspect of the deceased, depicted as a human-headed bird which was believed that can go forth by day from the tomb into the world of afterlife. Spells were acted to preserve this particular Ba.
IMO
In my opinion, after I read the story of this legend, I thought that although we can use all sorts of spells to preserve the dead body or have a better life in afterlife, but why must we do that? These are all unnecessary in my opinion. Why should we do something which is against the God's creation? Why not just undergo normal burification but why mummification? Although the Egyptians think that they do like this is normal, but I still think that we should just buried the normally and let the dead rest in peace. We Should Respect the Dead! R.I.P ~ XD
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