The claims that the Giza pyramids was used as tombs are not backed up by raw evidence, they are built very different from the later Pyramids that was used as tombs hence why I called it a modern theory, it's a theory because it lacks evidence.

It's strange and a big mystery that the largest pyramids of Giza contain no human remains, bodies, mummies or inscription in the walls like the later ones.

Later Pyramids were definitely used as tombs and have both texts and inscriptions on the walls referring them as tombs, I'm just mentioning the Giza pyramids here.

After reading that article I found nothing to contradict my current understanding. No, Egyptians were not just preserving bodies for the sake of preserving them. Pharoahs, which were really the main people to be mummified until the practice became more democratized in the new kingdom , were viewed as divine incarnations of different gods. So of course they would be "making the body divine". This is a god you are handling. You are going to use things normally used for offerings. They had temples to worship and present offerings to deceased pharoahs. Also distinct acts of vandalism on mummies in ancient times to deprive their souls of a home along with other Egyptian writings both point to a need for preservation as well as a not in the article itself that's states ancient Egyptians as well as Victoria's believed the body was necessary for the afterlife. Annoyed at how click bate this was for basically no substance.

"Napoleonic Era" includes the tail end of the Revolution and Napoleon as a whole.

"Revolutionary France" includes the Revolution and early stages of Napoleon.

There's enough overlap and short time frames in both regards that using either to date something wouldn't be blasphemous if it crawled into one or the other category a bit more than normal. And there's nothing wrong with applying both labels if something fits into both categories perfectly. "blah blah blah during Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era France.."

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Not an expert, but what if the reason we are not finding mummies is that they have either ascended heaven or someone is making a mummy army in secret to rule over the world?

I'm struck by how bizarre the "mask" comment is in the article, as if death masks weren't something done to preserve the likeness of the dead by Europeans for centuries.

This makes sense to me. About a decade ago a guy donated his body to scientists who wished to try the Egyption mummification process. They knew the "recipe" but had been unable to do it before because of legal reasons. I seem to remember they even made a documentary on it. Anyway the expectations were that it body would look fairly more lifelike than the 2500 year old mummies they had unbandaged. The belief was the extreme darkness and shriveling was the result of centuries slowly drying out. To their great surprise (as I recall) was that the mummy looked like that right away. I figured the high priests just quickly wrapped it up in a bunch of bandages so no one could see how bad the job came out. One couldn't imagine that being a preservation job that would be acceptable

How is this news? this was taught in school

I never claimed to be an expert, but it seems weird that we're not finding mummies in pyramids if that was the whole purpose for their existence.

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Then you would be at odds with basically every Egyptologist. The pyramids weren't just stand-alone constructions. There is a full complex of buildings including mortuary temples and other buildings associated with funerary rites.

That's just down to the Egyptians' knowledge of physiology and beliefs about what preservation meant. The Egyptians believed you thought with your heart and that was really the organ you needed to return and hence left that in the body. They obviously had some belief in magic and I think as part of the resurrection process they would have thought that the returned person would be able to use some spells to fully restore themselves.

To be fair, if you have removed the organs, have you truly preserved the body?

"I saved you a bag of chips."

"Thanks! Wait, there are no chips in it."

"I said I saved you a bag of chips."

It's possible that what they found in Khufu's pyramid was a sarcophagus, but considering bodies have never been found I'm inclined to believe that pyramids had a different purpose.

Every single one? I find that hard to believe.

id argue that Napoleon was a part of the Revolutionary period

Mummification went back into Egyptian pre-history. Started with burying bodies in hot dry desert sands, which preserves them. Then elaborated progressively from there (something similar happened in other places, like Peru). They did not believe in reincarnation, but certainly saw the afterlife as involving a material body (later burials included a shabti - a ritual doll - with the inscription 'when in the afterlife I am called to work in the fields, you, my shabti, will go and work for me'). They don't seem to have taken this to a literal extreme - after all mummification involves removing the brain and internal organs, which would make it hard to function as one does in this life.

"Apples never were for eating but being fermented in the ground and get the local wildlife drunk"

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It's called the xbox 360 because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.

sarcophagi were though

As someone who has read quite a few coffin texts... wut? This is 100% an unnecessarily provocative article that tries to turn a minor misunderstanding (the concept of exactly what the mummification process was meant to preserve) into a big thing, and probably mainly to get publicity for their exhibition.

Egyptian embalming wasn't embalming in the modern sense (it wasn't intended to be a lifelike embalming*), but the part of the soul that went to the afterlife required the body (khet) to be preserved to do so. Through preservation of the body (not just by natron, but sanctified bandages and all sorts of treatments, although in any but the "perfect rite" the organs weren't preserved), the rememberance of their name and the appropriate rites the deads vital essence and personality were reunited in death to form their "living intellect".

*The process was probably inspired by, and had much more incommon with, the natural desert mummification process.

I'm farely certain this isn't true. The Giza pyramids may not have had mummies, but they contained sarcophagi and other funerary equipment. And besides that, the pyramid complex contains other buildings including mortuary temples that pretty clearly indicate they were intended to be tombs. Not to mention there are Egyptian texts that refer to the pyramids explicitly as tombs and other pyramids have been found with mummies and are clearly tombs. I don't think there's any question among egyptologists that the Giza pyramids, like other pyramids, were tombs.

How could you possibly know that? I'd say the fact that they built what they did is more evidence for science based thinking than anything..