Mummies

The image shows a "Scientists prepare to X-ray a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy. Scientists use X-rays to learn more about mummies without taking apart the wrappings".

Many peoples, including the Inca of Peru, have preserved their dead as mummies. The ancient Egyptians, however, excelled at the practice. As part of their religion, they believed in life after death. For a person to live in the next world, they thought, the body must remain intact. This belief led the Egyptians to preserve their dead as mummies, or embalmed bodies. They thought that as long as the body was preserved, the soul could live.

Because moisture causes bodies to decay, the early Egyptians buried their dead in the desert sand. The heat dried the bodies but kept their form and features, creating naturally preserved mummies. Later the Egyptians began burying their dead in coffins. To keep the bodies from decaying, they started the practice of ritual mummification.

The Egyptians mummified their kings and nobles for some 3,000 years. The practice declined after the early 1st millennium BC. It was too costly ever to be available to most Egyptians.