In this story, the embalming of the dead in ancient Egypt plays an important role. Egyptian mummies are well known, not only from museums but movies. Although Egyptians in general liked to record many things, there are no written sources available about mummification, and archeological findings help very little. Greek writer Herodotus visited Egypt in the 5th century BC and expressed his puzzlement over this culture, which seemed rather strange to him. He described mummification explicitly in his histories.
However, in his time, mummification had already been practiced for millennia. Naturally, the craft had changed and evolved. Since the 18th century BC, the country at the Nile had also been ruled by varying peoples, who brought their own cultures to Egypt. In consequence, the insights of Herodotus were very different than those of someone who might have described the techniques during the period of the Middle Kingdom around 1900 BC. In addition, his viewpoint is that of an outsider, who found the Egyptian burial rites quite peculiar.
Mummies have been examined by modern researchers. They show much of what Herodotus described, but also how the art of mummification had been honed with growing experience. Presumably, Egyptians discovered in prehistoric times that bodies buried in the desert sand didn’t decompose but turned into natural mummies. The hot, arid climate helped the process. Preserving the body was very important because Egyptians believed a part of the soul stayed inside the corpse, so their deceased needed to be preserved for all eternity. They discovered how particularly the inner organs tended to decay and rot, so they removed them and preserved them separately. Using potash and natron, they dehydrated the bodies. Fragrant plant parts, ointments and oils not only preserved, but also provided the magic breath of life reviving the deceased through their noses.
Organs had to be buried with the dead since the body had to be complete. The heart, usually placed back inside the body, was more important than any other organ since it played the essential role at the Judgment of the Dead.
Egyptians imagined the heart contained intellect, thoughts, emotions and memories. The significance of the brain was completely overlooked. It was the only organ not just removed, but totally destroyed and tossed away. This view was not as absurd as it might seem to modern readers because the heart beats faster with excitement. Love, fear, anxiety—all these things we still attribute to the heart today since it reacts perceptibly to these emotions.
After embalming, the body was bandaged with much effort. Amulets were added to the bindings. The procedure lasted seventy days and was accompanied by numerous rituals, since sending a deceased off to the afterlife involved magic. This may be the reason why so little is known about it today. In ancient Egypt the processes must have been top secret. Such knowledge could have been easily misused. The fear a stranger might take possession of a part of the soul and use it for evil purposes must have been great. Where and how the embalming was performed we can only assume. A painting of a purification tent in a rock-cut tomb in Meir survived. These light-weight structures were not built for eternity, though, so we can only make assumptions as to what happened in them and what they looked like. They had to be set up near a water source in any case. The embalming hall weryt, however, must have been made of stone. The hall built for embalming the sacred Apis bulls has survived through the millennia. For this novel I decided on a closed off area with a surrounding wall, and I sited the place of purification within the compound. Water was supplied via canals built under the wall.
Whether the laws of the weryt were as strict as I described them is unknown. To a large extent I also made up the inauguration ceremony of Osiris. Osiris mysteries existed, but how they unfolded exactly has not been passed on through time. The Sokar festival is known at least in its general proceeding. Onions were indeed a symbol of the sun and became an integral part of the Netjeryt festival.
Sexually, Egyptians were rather permissive, but within well-defined limits. The position of women was singular in the ancient world. They could learn a profession and operate their own business. Marriage contracts determined how, in the case of a divorce, wife and children would be provided for, likely one of the reasons why adultery was severely punished. In case of allegations, both guilty parties, man and woman, were sentenced, sometimes even executed. Apparently, this didn’t occur very often though. Sex before marriage was allowed although illegitimate children were frowned upon and certainly posed an obstacle when it came to finding a suitable husband.
Contraceptives existed and they may have been fairly effective: a kind of diaphragm soaked in spermicide preparations. Since life was held sacred, contraceptives were usually only prescribed for medical reasons. Likely, a flourishing black market existed. Medicine was fairly advanced in Egypt. Still, for religious reasons with strong beliefs in how the afterlife was achieved, dissecting the dead was off limits for medical students. In consequence, the Egyptians never understood the vascular system. Instead they assumed canals provided the body with blood, air and water. Another set of canals served as outlets for feces, slime, urine and semen.
Money and monetary compensation did not yet exist, only barter trade. Pieces of copper, silver and gold served as a precursor of actual currency. These deben were either shaped in bars or rings so that smaller pieces could be broken off. Services like medical care were rewarded with more or less valuable presents. The House of Life was not only a kind of university, doctors practiced medicine there. In case of an emergency, they also made house calls. Apparently, the concept of independent medical practitioners did not exist. It is certain, however, that the poor also had access to health care.
I have bestowed the symptoms of a narcissistic personality disorder on lady Sitamun. A person afflicted with this disorder can easily dominate and influence family relations.
I thank forensic doctor Stefan Potente, who made me aware that a simple stab into the heart with a thin needle wouldn’t be fatal immediately. The wound would bleed into the heart sac, which would cause a cardiac tamponade. It might take quite some time for the heart to stop. Our killer found out when his first victim ran away, which forced him to refine his method. Any errors with regard to medical aspects or embalming are my own, however.
A special thanks goes to Edith Parzefall for killing every German word of my novel, transfiguring the text and breathing new life into it via the English language. And I’m grateful to Rebecca Rasmussen and Les Tucker, who helped polish the prose and weed out typos.
I hope to have provided a suspenseful, entertaining and interesting insight into the world of ancient Egypt. More adventures of Hori and Nakhtmin in Maat’s service are to follow.
If you enjoyed this novel, please leave a review. Nothing can motivate a writer more than the reader’s appreciation.
Berlin, Germany, January 2014
Kathrin Brückmann