ABSTRACT
Some 5,000 years ago, in a time known as the predynastic period, a civilization began to develop in Egypt that put extraordinary emphasis on preparing the human body for burial. Society believed that the fate of the soul in the next world depended on the state of the body in this one. The Egyptians believed that the body, soul, and spirit were mystically interconnected. The spirit of the person, they thought, could return to animate the mummy, causing it to come back to life and that life in the nether world was dependent on the continued existence of the body in this one (see Chapter 14).
