How to Mummify a Pharaoh

1. Direction words:

Question 1: Identify

Question 2: Use, to read, submit, note, do

Question 3: State

Question 4: Explain

Question 5: Quote, identify, state

Question 6: Describe, explain, give, to illustrate

Question 7: Choose, copy out, state, state, state, write, express, provide

Question 8: Choose, give, analyze, to do, to show

Question 9: Find, give, write out, identify

Question 10: Repeat

Question 11: Write out, give, explain

Question 12: Find, give, write out, highlight, name

Question 13: Repeat                                                                          

2. Active reading: Reading Inventory

ADAM GOODHEART

How to Mummify a Pharaoh (1995)          [pic 1]

Cannot be an instruction. Could be some kind of description - for entertainment? Makes me think about Tutankhamun. Also, brings up a picture of the mummification process, including removal of the internal organs and wrapping bodies with linen strips.

Adam Goodheart is an American historian and well-known essayist with a special interest in linking the past and present in his writing. He studied American history and literature at Harvard University, and, since graduating in 1992, has written on a wide range of cultural, political, and historical topics. His work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and The Atlantic, as well as in various anthologies. He has also appeared on National Public Radio, C-Span, and CNN. He was a founding editor of Civilization, the award-winning magazine of the U.S. Library of Congress, and has served as an editorial board member and contributing editor to several American magazines. Goodheart has won numerous awards for his writing, including the Henry Lawson Award for Travel Writing in 2005. In 2006, he was appointed director of Washington College’s C.V. Starr Centre for the Study of American Experience.[pic 2][pic 3][pic 4][pic 5][pic 6][pic 7]

                Historian and essayist, expert in both, should be a well written essay based on historical facts.

What has American historian to do with mummies?[pic 8]

Preparing to Read

This essay about the steps in the mummification process first appeared in Civilization magazine (May/June 1995) in a column entitled “Lost Arts”. Other “lost arts” featured in Goodheart’s column included “How to Host a Roman Orgy” and “How to Hunt a Woolly Mammoth.” Before you begin reading, think about what you know about Ancient Egypt and how you know it. Did you study the Pharaohs and pyramids in history class? Have you seen an Egyptian exhibit at the museum? Or do many of your associations come from films like The Mummy? As you read Goodheat’s essay, pay attention to his tone.

                                        [pic 9]

There are other cultures and believes that suppose that spirit never dies                         what do I know about                   (reincarnation, resurrection, transmigration of the soul, etc. Heaven and hell - afterlife).                     Ancient Egypt?[pic 10][pic 11][pic 12][pic 13][pic 14][pic 15]

O

ld Pharaohs never died - they just took really long vacations. Ancient Egyptians believed that at death, a person’s spirit, or ka, was forcibly separated from the body. But it returned now and then for a visit, to snack on the food that had been left in the tomb. It was crucial that the body stay as lifelike as possible for eternity - that way the ka (whose life was hard enough already) would avoid reanimating the wrong corpse. So mummification became a fine art, especially where royalty was concerned. These days dead pharaohs are admittedly a bit hard to come by. So if you decide to practice on a friend or close relative, please make the loved one is fully deceased before you begin.                                                [pic 16][pic 17][pic 18][pic 19]

Sure the essay is for entertaining. And ___?____ something else                                        Superstition?[pic 20]

The early stages of the process can be a bit malodorous, so it’s recommended you move to a well-ventilated tent. (You’ll have trouble breathing anyway since tradition also prescribes you wear the jackal-head mask in honor of Anubis, god of the dead.) After cleansing the body, break the pharaoh’s nose by pushing a long iron hook up the nostrils. Left or right, you choose. Then use the hook to remove the contents of the skull. The brain can be discarded since the Egyptians attached no special significance to it.                                                1st step of the process[pic 21][pic 22][pic 23][pic 24]

Very strange that the Egyptians did not consider the brain as an important organ.                                        2nd  step Where and how did they really discard it?                       [pic 25][pic 26]

Next, take a flint knife and make a long incision down the left side of the abdomen - actually, it’s best to have a friend do this, since the person who cuts open the body must then be pelted with stones to atone for the profanation. After you’ve stoned your friend, use a bronze knife to remove the pharaoh’s internal organs through the incision. Wash them in palm wine as a disinfectant and set them aside to inter later in separate alabaster jars. Leave the heart in place. Egyptians believed it was the seat of consciousness.[pic 27][pic 28][pic 29][pic 30][pic 31][pic 32]

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