Most Egyptians died before they reached the age of 30, and they therefore had a strong belief in the afterlife, which is where they would reside for eternity. Because of this belief, they made elaborate preparations for the new phase of their existence.

The most important aspects of a person's spirit were known as the ka and the ba. Because the body was needed to survive after death in order there these two entities to survive, the Ancient Egyptians took considerable care in preserving the bodies of the dead.

The ka which was represented by two arms reaching for the sky growing out of a person's head, was the deceased's spirit double, what we might today call a doppel-ganger.  Although it could leave the body, it had to return to the corpse for food and refreshment. The ba, depicted as a bird with a human head, was considered to be the person's life force, and it required the body on which to perch after death. The Egyptians also believed in the akh which could soar to heaven to take its place in the stars.

The earliest Egyptians were not buried in tombs or pyramids as we would recognize them today. Instead when they died, they were buried in the desert where the hot dry sand would desiccate the body and help to preserve it. Only later, as their civilization developed were tombs used for the dead. Because there was no longer hot dry sand to preserve the corpse, embalming was developed.

The mummification of a corpse was a fairly messy and gruesome business, but if it was carried out correctly, it would preserve the body in remarkably good condition. One simply had to visit a mummy in a museum to see evidence of this.

The process took 70 days to complete, most of which time was to enable the corpse to thoroughly dry out. The first step was to make an incision in the side of the body, through which the viscera were removed. The viscera are the intestines, heart, lung and stomach. They were then separately embalmed and were placed in four canopic jars. Each jar had a different stopper in the form of one of the 4 sons of Horus, who protected the viscera. Hapy, a baboon looked after the lungs, while Qebehsenuef, depicted as a falcon protected the intestines, for example.

Once the viscera were removed, the corpse was covered in natron. This was a salt that acted as a preservative, and it also facilitated the drying out of the body. When, after roughly 35 to 40 days, the body was completely dried out, it was filled with materials soaked in resins and oils in order to give it a more normal shape, and the incision was sewn shut.

The body was then wrapped in multiple layers of linen, the process commencing at the fingers and toes. Protective jewels and amulets were placed between the layers, and each layer of linen was also coated in perfumes, resins and oils.

Eventually, the head of the corpse was covered by a mask placed there by the chief embalmer.  He would be wearing the jackal headed mask of Anubis, the Egyptian god of embalming. Only then, after such elaborate care and attention to detail, was the corpse placed into its coffin.

As the years went by, the oils and resins used in the wrapping stage of the mummification process would become thick and sticky, almost tar-like. The Egyptian word for this substance was mumiya which means bitumen. This is the ultimate derivation of the modern word mummy.

As time passed, the high mummification standards of the New Kingdom deteriorated, although the mummification of bodies continued in Ancient Egypt until after the time of the Ptolemies, some 2000 years ago.