Burial and the dead in ancient Egyptian society

Abstract

Ancient Egypt offers a paradigm contrast between ideals of respectful care for the dead, on the one hand, and realities of medium- and long-term neglect, destruction and reuse on the other. Ideals are expressed in normative mortuary monuments and in texts; the archaeological record, together with relatively few skeptical texts, testifies to realities. Death was as socially riven as the realm of the living. Vast amounts were invested in royal and elite monuments, while cemeteries as a whole cannot account for more than a fraction of the population. Preservation of the body was essential for conventional conceptions of an afterlife - often envisaged to take place away from the tomb - but embalming practices cannot have been required for all. The contradictions implied by divergences from the ideal were negotiated over very long periods. Such processes of accommodation may be particularly necessary in complex societies and civilizations. They emphasize that, even if the actors may present the matter otherwise, treatment of the dead relates as much to the living as to the deceased.