natural history museum

visit to Oxford natural history museum

Yesterday, we visited Oxford Natural History museum and we saw a lot of interesting things like: exotic animals, dinosaurs, fishes, and the evolution of those. We think that the most interesting topic was the Egypt mummification so we are going to talk about the methods and spiritual perspective.

Sarcophagus decoration

In the old Egypt the most important people like imperators or politics were the biggest part of all Egypt’s society and it’s because when this type of people die, the decoration of sarcophagus need to be very awesome in the topic of decoration. The Egypt’s tradition said if a sarcophagus has lots of drawings with the actions of the die person, the reward for this person would be better. The judge in the infra-word is Horus the eagle god that put the heart of die person and compares it with a plume in a balance, if the heart has the same weight of the plume; this person had a good life.

Animal’s mummification

Most animals, reptiles, birds and fishes were regarded by the ancient Egyptians as sacred for four main reasons:

·         To allow beloved pets to go on the afterlife

·         To provide food

·         To act as offerings to a particular god

·         And because some were seen as physical manifestations of gods

The most common animals were: dogs, cats, bulls, monkeys, crocodiles, scorpions and represent gods like: ANUBIS, HORUS, SEBEK, ETC. They were treated as same as humans.

Afterlife

They believed that one day the world would end and that the dead would travel to an afterlife where they would stay forever. They would try to mummify the dead bodies because they didn’t want the body’s to rot because they thought if the body would rot then it couldn’t go into the afterlife without all its body parts. Egyptians made it important that the bodies were preserved for them to continue the afterlife.

Method of mummification

º The brain and viscera were removed and preserved in canopic jars.

ºThe body cavities were filled with resin

ºThe balming incision was then sewn up

ºThe body was now impregnated with dry Natron for forty days to desiccate it.

ºThen the body would be anointed with various oils.

In our opinion this was an excited place to visit in Oxford and we learn a lot of things about animals, and other cultures. So if you have the opportunity visits this museum.