We are used to the pyramids and valley of the kings so are aware that death was high on anyone's agenda. The pharaoh's spent much of their wealth on their tomb, even a minor pharaoh like Tutankhamen. Grandiose ambitions for the afterlife were shared by common people also. The Egyptians were world powers (in their own terms from the 3rd to 1st millennium BCE. Some pharaohs were prolific builders, like Ramses II ("the Great", around 1200BCE) whose statues are everywhere in Egypt. The Pyramids were a millennium earlier.
Customs about the afterlife were part of funerals. In royal tombs, the steps to the afterlife were painted on the walls with scenes painted on the walls at great expense. More common funerals would use papyrus scrolls, sometimes specially produced, sometimes off the shelf. Funerals were generally optimistic, as I guess they are today. We assume that whatever happens in the afterlife, it will be good rather than bad. A funeral represents a passing from one state to another. It is a time to remember good acts. So it was in Egypt. The funeral programme walked the dead through the transition, informing them of what to do and what to say. It was not really a ritual and there are variations.
The first stage was in the Hall of Justice (Maat, pictured as a goddess). Justice is represented as a feather (Ostrich, it is often said). The feather is a stylus, a pen, with which laws were made. The feather was weighed against the dead person's heart to determine whether he (or she) had been a good person. A monster, the Devourer of Death, stood by but never seems to get any action.
Here we see the jackel-headed god Anubis bringing the dead in dressed in white. Why white may be too difficult to know at this distance - a neophyte changing statuses maybe? or maybe it is just artistic (see also below). The colours came from chemical deposits, crushed down and stabilized in gum, so the remain bright today. In the second scene, Reds are iron oxides, blues are copper oxides, green from malachite (copper), yellow from ochre and later arsenic trisulphide, white was chalk mixed with gypsum. Colours were naturalistic, based on observation. White dress was common then as best clothes. Anubis checks the scales, with the heart on one side and the feather of justice on the other. . Then the verdict is written down and the dead taken through to Osiris seated on a throne. His green face represents his role in fertility and rebirth; deities usually were given gold skin. There is a lotus at his feet representing beauty coming out of mud and filth. Across the top are seven pairs of divine figures, representing completion or wholeness. Three stands for plurality, five (less common) represents divine activity, and seven, perfection and completeness. Animals can have symbolic associations, maybe as predators (hawks, crocodiles, cats, dogs, jackels) or beauty (ibis). The most significant bird of all the mythical Bennu bird, is both, part crane and part hawk.
The pictures here come from this book, alas out of print but there are other books available, such as a Penguin, which give an account and translation of the Egyptian funeral documents. I have focused on weighing the heart, but the long papyrus scrolls present pictorial every stage of the journey of the dead. A soul has to go through many mansions and has to know their names, and the names of the custodians and gatekeepers. The scroll gives them the information which they have to memorise. The journey ends at the boat of Ra sailing over the sky from dawn to dusk.
This next picture shows the familiar heart-weighing with Anubis checking the scales and the recorder behind alongside the Devourer. The third version below has a female subject.
Here the dead woman is led by Horus and the Devourer is under the scales taking a particular interest. There is an interesting mix of blue colours, light and dark, in this illumination. A decorative monkey sits on top of the scales
If teaching Ancient Egypt in KS2, weighing the heart/soul in a balance of justice is a useful way into moral and citizenship education. Next, the soul of the dead hovers as a bird over the corpse.
The soul has to journey through many mansions, each with doorkeepers and passwords which are contained in this ceremonial programme.
The dead and his wife sitting, with their souls as birds in front
One lion represents yesterday, the other tomorrow
The dead's senses are opened for future life eternal and future food and luxuries are piled in front
The eyes of the soul are opened for future life
The soul worships Ra on his solar boat, the solar disc appearing above the hawk's head.
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