The Egyptian
Afterlife
The Soul’s
Journey to Paradise
By Donald
A. Mackenzie
In the inner chamber of the Tutankhamen
tomb the figure of an Egyptian jackal has for thirty long centuries
been keeping watch over the mummy.
Here we touch on one of the world's
most ancient beliefs regarding the destiny of the soul.
THE SOUL'S FIRST FLIGHT
The preparation of the mummy with its magic armour of charms
and amulets was an inportant process, and placed under the protection
of the god Anubis, who is here shown in the act of laying the
corpse on the funerary couch. The humna-headed bird is the soul
of the deceased, holding the breath-giving sail and sceptre
of power. After a drawing in Rosellini's "Monumenti Civili".
It was believed that in death, as
in life, man was in constant need of his faithful companion, the
dog. The dog, his immemorial sentinel and scout, would defend
him against human and bestial enemies and act as his guide and
tracker when he wandered afar in search of food and shelter.
The belief enshrined in the lines of Pope :
He thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company—
was shared by "..the poor Indian.." and
the highly-cultured Egyptian aristocrats and Pharaohs.
The prowling jackal was regarded by the early peoples
as the hunting scout of the lion. It is closely allied to the dog,
and the dog was the first animal domesticated and deified by man.
Herodotus tells us that when a pet dog died the
Egyptians went into mourning and shaved their heads and the whole
of their bodies, and that there were sacred burial places for dogs.
It was, no doubt, because the wild jackal was seen
by night prowling in the cemeteries that the Egyptians regarded
it as " the dog of the dead," and deified it as Anubis.
Many ancient and modern peoples have clung to the
belief that a dog howling in the darkness proclaims the sudden and
stealthy approach of the god or goddess of death. Thus, the Greek
poet Theocritus makes Simaetha exclaim : " Hark ! the dogs
are barking through, the town. Hecate (portress of Hades) is at
the crossways. Make haste and clash the brazen cymbals."
Many folk-stories and old myths tell of the terrible
watch-dogs of Hades, of dog-scouts accompanying souls, and of attacks
made by dogs on supernatural beings who threaten the lives of their
owners.
Anubis, the Egyptian wild dog, was a veritable scout
of souls. As Ap-uat he was "Opener of the Ways," guiding
the dead along the dark and desolate paths that led to the mysterious
Underworld of Paradise.
MAGIC
WHEREBY THE PRIESTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT AWOKE THE MUMMIFIED DEAD
After the preparation
of the mummy, there were other acts to be performed for the dead
man. One was known as the creemony of the Opening of the Mouth,and
belonged to a series designed to re-animate the mummy and make it
a fit habitation of the "ka" or double, which lived in
the tomb. The double was born with a a man, but at his death took
on a separate exitence and was ree to roam the world at will, returning
to the tomb. However, to feed on the funerary offerings; the part
of the man which voyaged to Paradise was his "Ba", or
soul, symbolised as a human-headed hawk. This vigneete from the
"Book of the Dead" of Hunefer shows the mummy before which
the wife and daughter of Hunefer are weeping, while the high priest
and his assistants perform the mystic rites; the god Anubis is also
introduced, exbracing the mummy, to indicate that his protection
is assured for the dead.
From the Papyrus of Hunefer, British Museum.
By Tutankhamen's time, however, Anubis had become
a highly complex deity and had assumed a double character.
In the tomb he was a sentinel crouched standing
beside the mummy. " I have come to protect Osiris (the dead
Pharaoh)," declares Anubis, in the "Book of the Dead.”
He was also supposed to assist in the process of
mummification.
In his other form he conducted the soul to the Celestial
Paradise.
continued...
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