red by his evil brother, Seth. Seth cut Osiris into fourteen pieces and scattered them all over Egypt. His wife, Isis, eventually found all of them and magically Osiris’ body become whole. This story of the dead king’s miraculous resurrection gave Egyptians hope in everlasting life. So to be reborn, a dead person tried to be identified with Osiris in every possible way. Mummies were prepared in exactly the same way as the body of Osiris had been hundreds of years before. If all went well, the mummy would “become an Osiris” and live forever.The key to making long lasting mummies was drying out the bodies of the dead before burial. The first part in doing this was to remove the organs that were most likely to cause decay. So the Egyptians decided that the stomach, the intestines, the liver, and the lungs would have to be removed. However, they believed that the body parts that were removed shouldn’t be thrown away. Each organ was placed in a separate container of wood, pottery, or stone, to be preserved in the tomb forever along with the mummy. As long as the mummy and its insides were protected against, decay, the Egyptians believed that all the body parts would be magically reunited in the afterlife, just like in the story of Osiris.The next step in mummification was the drying out of the body itself. This was done by thickly coating it inside and out with a powdery white salt called naton. This salt had the ability to draw water from the skin and other tissues. This process took anywhere from thirty-five to forty days. During that time, the body lay on a slanted board known as the “bed of mummification.” This moisture dripped through a channel at the lower end into a pan or bucket.The final step was to wrap and bandage the mummy. A combination of large pieces of cloth and narrower strips of linen were used. The wrappings were applied in many layers. These wrappings covered wh...
