Key to Afterlife (Blogpost #5)

The Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts are religious documents that were used to help the spirit of the person to be preserved for the afterlife. Before, the funerary texts only appeared inside the king's tomb during the Old Kingdom but at the end of the period it appeared in the tombs of the wives of the royals. Funerary spells were also seen on coffins and for the first intermediate period some non-royal Egyptians could afford the coffin with spells so the pharaoh had no longer exclusive rights for the afterlife.  Pyramid texts was only reserved for the pharaohs and the privileged so there is the Book of the Dead.


The Book of the Dead consists of numerous spells with the same purpose as the funerary texts. In every coffin of a deceased their is a Book of the Dead  and not all were the same because it was believed that some would only write what they think would be helpful to the spirit. Almost every Book of the Dead are different or unique that includes different spells . The Book of the Dead gives a very helpful information on the Egyptians beliefs of life, death and afterlife. The items to make this book were very expensive and it was required that the dead's relatives would complete the spells.

For further information I have the article The Pyramid Texts: Guide to the Afterlife by Joshua J. Mark from ancient.eu.com

The Pyramid Texts are known as the oldest religious texts in the world. It is designed with spells that will free the soul of the pharaoh. It provided a reference to the god Osiris and the judgement on the afterlife. Their is this utterances which are inscriptions that were meant to be spoken and it gives the pharaoh the journey to the sky. Each chapter in the book is corresponded with a utterance that is to spoken aloud to the soul. It is said that the priests were believed that they created this book which has the purpose of leading the soul to the afterlife safely.




"A ramp to the sky is built for him that he may go up to the sky thereon. He goeth up upon the smoke of the great exhalation. He flieth as a bird and he settleth as a beetle on an empty seat on the ship of Ra... He roweth in the sky in thy ship, O Ra! And he cometh to the land in thy ship, O Ra!"



This was stated in the Pyramid Texts and this suggests that they believed that the soul could fly, walk, run or even row to the Field of Reeds. The ship of Ra. which is believed to be connected to the sun and the texts, was described as a transportation of the soul to the underworld then through the heavens then finally to the Field of Reeds where the soul would enjoy an eternal life.

Death separates us from touching the loved one but it does not really separates us from the emotions. Death forces people to accept and realize that the person who died can no longer come back so instead of mourning we honor them. Honoring the dead is a tradition that gives us a chance to value again the person who died just like All Soul's Day and All Saint's Day here in the Philippines. There are a lot of ways to honor the dead and the newest is included in the article Modern Mourning: New Ways We Honor Our Dead by Glenn McDonald from new.discovery.com.

It was said that this new ways of honoring the dead is caused by the fast disappearance of rituals in our secularized society. Another reason is that some people who do not have religions find their own ways to honor or mourn for them. As a result, some started on social networking sites such as Facebook where they would assemble photos, videos or written tributes for a memorial that can be seen by a lot of people around the world. Even funeral services now offer an online memorial and it was said that over one million pages on Facebook are a tribute to dead people.  Lastly, a recent pay-it-forward movement was made because of the death of Alyssa J. O'Neill. The family bought 40 of Alyssa's favorite beverage at Starbucks which is the pumpkin spice latte. They gave all of the lattes with the hashtag AJO written on the cup and it was discovered that the movement made it through a lot of places like Sri Lanka where they received pictures of coffee cups with #AJO written on it.

Many of us have dreamed to be on heaven and there were also times when we had experienced those dry times where we lost our heaven and all we have is hell. I believe that prayers on funerals are an equivalent of the utterances in the Pyramid Texts. Some believe that to have obedience, persistence and persevering prayer would lead them to their heaven. I think that those are not enough because what really matters is that we should do things not only for ourselves. We should be open to others because all of us are not sure that all the prayers are effective and to do things that are right could be a better thing to do. We can have our own heaven here on Earth if all of us would agree to make it a better place.