All Ancient Egyptian Mortuary Rites

Ancient Egyptian mortuary rites comprised an elaborate sequence of practices that the ancient Egyptians believed were necessary to secure a person's immortality after death. Central to this tradition was the physical preservation of the body through mummification, understood as essential to preserving the identity the deceased would need in the afterlife, accompanied by the recitation of magical spells drawn from funerary texts and burial with grave goods intended to serve the deceased beyond death. Rites such as the Opening of the Mouth ceremony were performed to restore the senses of the deceased, or of their statue or mummy, so that they could eat, speak and act in the afterlife, while royal mortuary cults maintained ongoing offerings and ritual service at a king's tomb long after burial to sustain his eternal existence. These customs evolved considerably across the roughly three thousand year span of ancient Egyptian civilization as old practices were adapted, but the underlying aim, preparing and sustaining the deceased for an eternal existence beyond the grave, remained constant.