Herodotus wrote that Egypt is the gift of the Nile, which presents the characteristics of Egyptian culture well. In ancient Egypt, the influence of the Nile was almost absolute on every aspect of the society, such as state administration, division of seasons, the way of thinking, etc. Especially, the flood of the Nile, which occurs in annual circular manner, did influence the life and perception of the ancient Egyptian people. As a result, Ancient Egyptian notion of gods, the afterlife, and the human was differentiated much from those of adjacent Mesopotamian culture. In these circumstances, this is intended to examine the afterlife and souls in ancient Egyptian understanding. The notion of the afterlife in Egyptian thought is attested from the beginning of Egyptian history through archaeological remains, both textual and non-textual. Between them, it is textual documents which betray their understanding of the afterlife in detail. These are called as funerary or mortuary texts, to which Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and the Book of the dead may befall, and they went through changes with the times. The ancient Egyptian believed that the human consists of several aspects of body, soul, and etc. Human body could be classified, according to its status, as body, corpse, and mummy, while soul might be presented as akh, ba, ka, and so on. However, the long period of Egyptian documentary history gave some fluidity onto these divisions and their definitions. To be an intact human, one should maintain the unity of all these body and souls, and the mummy represents well their efforts to preserve this unity after death. Also, this world and nether world were not disconnected from one another in their understanding. From Coffin Texts on, judging the dead is an important part of their journey into nether world, and the judging is deeply connected with morality of the dead in this world. Thus, the main purpose of the Book of the dead is to purge sins of the dead and provide to them the knowledge and information needed for their journey of the afterlife. The ultimate goal, however, is the overcome of death. Pyramid Texts kept saying that “Rise up, You are not dead!” which reveals the notion of “denial of the death.” This denial is a perpetual theme of ancient Egyptian mortuary texts, and it is this denial which shows the aim of human being in ancient Egyptian thought.

Ancient Egypt , Afterlife , Soul , Pyramid Text , Coffin Text , The Book of the Dead , Mummy