Religion, pyramids and mummification in Ancient Egypt

Pyramids were built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms as tombs for pharaohs. The most famous, near Memphis (Giza), were built for the pharaohs Khufu (Cheops), Khafra and Menkaura. Khufu’s pyramid was built about 2600–2560 BCE; its original height was about 147 metres. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world and the only one that survives. A pyramid is made of millions of stone blocks. Inside are a corridor and chambers, in one of which stood a stone sarcophagus with the pharaoh’s mummy. The pyramids are guarded by the Sphinx, a statue with a lion’s body and a human head, about 20 metres high. In the New Kingdom pharaohs were buried in tombs cut into mountain rock; the most famous is Tutankhamun’s tomb (found in 1922). The Egyptians believed life continues in the underworld, where at Osiris’s judgment the dead person’s heart is weighed against the feather of the goddess of truth. For this reason bodies were mummified; the process took about 70 days, and the body was wrapped in cloth with amulets.