Canopic Jars And Egypt Death Believes

The belief that the deeds done in the body would be subjected to an analysis and scrutiny by the divine powers after the death of a man belongs to the earliest period of Egyptian civilization Canopic Jars, and this belief remained substantially the same in all generations.

Though we have no information as to the locality where the Last Judgment took place, or whether the Egyptian soul passed into the judgment-hall immediately after the death of the body, or after the canopic jars activity was ended and the body was deposited in the tomb, it is quite certain that the belief in the judgment was as deeply rooted in the canopic jars as the belief in immortality. There seems to have been no idea of a general judgment when all those who had lived in the world should receive their reward for the deeds done in the body; on the contrary, all the evidence available goes to show that each soul was dealt with individually, and was either permitted to pass into the kingdom of Osiris and of the blessed, or was destroyed straightway.

Certain passages in the texts seem to suggest the idea of the existence of a place for departed spirits wherein the souls condemned in the judgment might dwell, but it must be remembered that it was the enemies of Ra, the Sun-god, that inhabited this region; and it is impossible to imagine that the divine powers who presided over the judgment would permit the souls of the wicked to live after they had been condemned and to become enemies of those who were pure and blessed.

On the other hand, if we attach any importance to the ideas of the Copts upon this subject, and consider that they represent ancient beliefs which they derived from the Egyptians traditionally, it must be admitted that the Egyptian underworld contained some region where in the souls of the wicked were punished for an indefinite period.

From the book: Egyptian ideas of the future life, by e.a. wallis budge ma litt.d., d.lit. Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities of the British Museum. 1908

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