Embalming hall

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Embalming hall in hieroglyphics
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weryt
wryt
embalming hall / holy place

The embalming hall (also embalming workshop ; ancient Egyptian weryt ) is an ancient Egyptian facility for the mummification of corpses. The entire process in the embalming hall symbolizes the change from the earthly deceased to a divine mummy statue , combined with the associated burial rites of the solution .

According to depictions of private graves from the Old Kingdom , the embalming hall stood together with the cleaning tent ( jbw ) on the west bank of the Nile . It was a construction with a pillared hall and an entrance protected because of the secret rites. For kings there was possibly a separate facility, which was originally a reed hut ( seh-netjer ). So far, only the Apis bulls' embalming hall has been found in Memphis . It was a brick building with narrow, parallel rooms and eight up to four meters long stone tables with lion protomes .

The term embalming workshop refers to the generic term solution and means the deifying production of the body of the deceased. A deity was assigned to each part of the body. The head had the greatest importance here ( death mask ). After the deification of body parts had been completed, the funeral procession began to perform the final ritual of opening the mouth at the burial site . The deified mummy statue is positioned in an upright posture in the forecourt of the burial place during the mouth opening ceremony at noon in order to be embedded in the sarcophagus after sunset , the sarcophagus being the "womb" marking the place of the subsequent rebirth.

literature

  • Dieter Arnold : Embalming Hall. In: Lexicon of Egyptology. Vol. I , pp. 614-615.
  • Dieter Arnold: Lexicon of Egyptian architecture. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2000, ISBN 3491960010 , p. 34, → Balsamierungshalle (cleaning tent ).
  • E. Brovarski: The Doors of Heaven. In: Orientalia 46 , 1977, pp. 110-113.
  • J. Dimick: The Embalming House of the Apis Bulls. In: Rudolf Anthes : Mit Rabineh 1955. Philadelphia 1959, pp. 75–79.
  • Bernhard Grdseloff: The Egyptian cleaning tent. Cairo, 1941 (review by É. Drioton, in: Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte (ASAE). 40 , 1940, pp. 1007-14).
  • Selim Hassan : Excavations at Giza. Vol. 4, Cairo, 1943, pp. 69-102.
  • JK Hoffmeier: The Possible Origins of the Tent of Purification in the Egyptian Funary Cult. In: Studies on Ancient Egyptian Culture (SAK) 9 , 1981, pp. 167–177.
  • M. and A. Jones: The Apis House Project at Mit Rahinah. In: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt (JARCE). No. 19 , 1982, pp. 51-58, JARCE 20 , 1983, pp. 33-45, JARCE 22 , 1985, pp. 17-28, JARCE 24 , 1987, pp. 35-46.
  • Dieter Kurth: cleaning tent In: Wolfgang Helck (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Ägyptologie. Vol. VS 220-222.
  • Herbert Ricke : Comments on Egyptian architecture in the Old Kingdom. Volume II, Cairo 1950, pp. 96-98.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Arnold: Lexicon of Egyptian Architecture , p. 34, → Balsamierungshalle (cleaning tent)