Ancient Egyptian Government was dominated by a single man, the Pharaoh.

The people believed that the king was more than a man, however, but that he was a god. This gave him absolute control over the affairs of the Empire and its people.Ancient Egypt was also a theocracy, controlled by the clergy. The Pharaohs advisors and ministers were almost always priests, who were considered the only ones worthy and able to carry out the god-kings commands. As in most religious ancient societies, priests had special status above the rest of the citizens, forming a kind of nobility.The governmental officials included the vizier, or the prime minister, the chief treasurer, the tax collector, the minister of public works, and the army commander. These officials were directly responsible to the Pharaoh. The land itself was divided up into provinces called nomes. Each nome had a governor, who was appointed by the Pharaoh, and responsible to the vizier.Taxes were paid in goods and labor. Citizens were drafted into the army and forced labor for periods of time to pay what was called a corve, the labor tax. Slaves, mercenaries, and draftees were often used in the army. It is believed, however, that Egyptian slaves were not used to construct sacred monuments, such as the Pyramids. Egyptologists were led to this conclusion by recent finding of worker burial grounds near such monuments. The workers received proper Egyptian burials,whereas slaves did not.The majority of Egyptian people were peasants who worked the land along the fertile Nile flood basin. These people had no voice in their government, and accepted this fact because it was backed by their religion. This mingling of religion and government is probably what kept Egypt so powerful and centralized during its high points

Step one: Remove some of the pharaoh's internal organs and fill the body with sweet smelling spices.Step two: Cover the body with a white powder called "natron," bags of which were also wrapped around the head. (Natron was a drying agent, rather like salt, and the body was left in it for several days, until all the moisture had been removed.) Step three: Wash the embalmed and dried body -- now called a "mummy", treat it

withperfumed oils, and wrap it in linen bandages. Place a mask over the face of the mummy and wrap it once more. Step four: Bury itBut before placing the body in the coffin, the last rites were performed. In this ritual, a priest, wearing the mask of the jackal-headed god, Anubis, touched the lips of the masked mummy with a special tool to open the mouth. This symbolic gesture was done to grant the dead man the power to eat and speak in the next life. The mummy was then placed in a series of coffins, one fitting inside the next. And, in an elaborate burial ceremony, the coffin was placed in a tomb stocked with food, clothing, cosmetics, furniture ... everything the pharaoh might need to enjoy his or her afterlife. The tomb also contained statues and paintings of servants, who were believed to come alive when certain prayers were recited, thus extending their service to the pharaoh even into the next world.The Greeks believed that when a person dies, his or her vital breath or psyche left the body to enter the palace of Hades, the king of the dead. The dead were buried in single graves, which were either stoned lined or plain pits dug in the ground. The bodies of the dead were either cremated first before burial or buried intact. Along with the dead were buried gifts such as vessels with food and drinks. Other gifts included weapons such as knives and tools for the men, jewellery, clothes and spindle-whorls for the women and finally toys for the children.For the ancient Chinese, they believed when a person dies, they would be reincarnated into either humans again, or animals such as dogs and pigs, depending on how well they had behaved when they were alive. For instance, the good were believed to be reborn as human beings into rich and prominent families, while the evil were either reborn as humans who led lives full of hardships or as animals. Thus, the people made many preparations for there next lives by doing as much good to others as they could and also worshipped their ancestors to seek their advice through priests, diviners and objects such as oracle bones. The dead were buried together with their possessions such as jewellery and clothes, which were believed to follow them in their next life. For the dead emperors of ancient China, even the queens and concubines were sacrificed and buried along with the emperors to accompany them to the next life!Today, some of the ways of "treating" the dead include embalming the dead, cremation, burials underground and water burials. The modern way of embalming the dead is very much different form the Egyptians though, the blood is drained from the body and replaced by a solution of formaldehyde in water, called Formalin. Cavity fluid is removed and replaced with a preservative of Formalin mixed with alcohols, emulsifiers, and other substances. To make the body look more realistic, cosmetics and other substances are customarily also applied to visible parts of the body.Cremation is pracitised by a lot people today, as it has been in the past by the Greeks and the Hindus of ancient India. However, many religious groups have scorned the use of cremation.Water burial is probably the least common form of burial and perhaps, not known to some people around the world. It is a form of burial in which the bodies of heroes were cast adrift in boats. In the South Pacific it was a custom to place the body in a canoe and to launch it on the water. In the Western society, water burial is usually carried out for a person who has died at sea.What are the other types of ways in which the dead are buried? Do you think the dead today are still buried together with their possessions or gifts of food and drinks? What are the different views towards death by people living in different parts of the world?

Mummies

The word 'mummy' is not of Egyptian origin, but is derived from the Arabic 'mumiyah,' which means 'body preserved by wax or bitumen'; This term was used because of an Arab misconception of the methods used by the Egyptians in preserving their dead. A mummy is a corpse whose skin and flesh have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs. Mummies of humans and other animals have been found throughout the world, both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts to preserve the dead. The best known mummies are those that have been deliberately embalmed with the specific purpose of preservation, particularly those in ancient Egypt, where not only humans but also crocodiles and cats were mummified. Ancient Greek historians record that the Persians sometimes mummified their kings and nobility in wax, though this practice has never been documented in Egypt. The body of a Persian Princess which surfaced in 2004 in Pakistans mummy had a nature which turned out to have been forged. In China, preserved corpses have been recovered from submerged cypress coffins packed with medicinal herbs. Although Egyptian mummies are the most famous, the oldest mummies recorded are the Chinchorro mummies from northern Chile and southern Peru. Also among the oldest is Uan Muhuggiag which is a place in the central Sahara, and the name of the mummy of a small boy found there in 1958 by Professor Fabrizio Mori. The mummy displays a highly sophisticated mummification technique, and at around 5,500 years old is older than any comparable Ancient Egyptian mummy.

The monks of Palermo in Sicily began mummifying their dead in 1599, and gradually other members of the community wished to have their bodies preserved as a status symbol. The last person to be mummified there died in the 1920s. The Capuchin catacombs of Palermo contain thousands of bodies, many which are clothed and standing, however in many cases the preservation was not successful with only the skeleton and clothing surviving. Many ancient civilizations believed in life after death, mummifying those who had died to guarantee the soul passage into the next life. Different civilizations had their own rituals to that end. Some believed that the dead lived on in the tomb, while others thought of the dead as having gone to a blessed afterworld in some far-distant place. That being the case they provided for both worlds, elaborate preparations for the afterlife been made in the preservation of the dead.