Did the ancient Egyptians mummify their dead because they intended the bodies to be preserved, or was that just a chance consequence of the ritual?
The aim of mummification was not to preserve a persons body as it had been in life but to create a new body that could last for eternity. The Ancient Egyptians believed that a person was made up of a number of physical and non-physical elements. The body was the physical part. The ka and ba, together with a persons name and their shadow, were the non-physical parts. Mummification was intended to create a body that could continue to house a persons ka and ba. The ka was a life force sustained by the consumption of food and drink. In the afterlife it also required nourishment to survive. Food offerings left by the living at the tombs of their ancestors sustained the ka. Depictions of offerings on coffins, tomb walls, or other burial objects magically fulfilled the same function. The most important characteristic of the ba was its ability to move. It could leave the body and travel through the worlds of the living and of the dead, enabling the dead to participate in both. It was believed
