Hence the need for a gold mask, gold coffin and gold amulets covering the King’s body for eternal protection. Pharaoh, son of the Sun, rejoining the gods in the afterlife, would therefore have a flesh of gold. He traveled during the day the sky with his father Ra, the sun, and at night joined the stars. Pharaoh already was a ‘good god’, and in the afterlife he became a fully fledged god. Egyptian Pharaohs built impressive tombs with the goal of resurrection, by joining this cyclical promise of eternal life.Īnd the Kings had one tremendous advantage compared to the average Egyptian who also hoped to live eternally. Furthermore, they also symbolize the original earth mound of vegetation, the regeneration of plant life. Originally covered in smooth white stone and with a gold and silver tip, they shone brightly looking like sun rays. This is how pyramids express perpetual rebirth. The idea was to join the sun in its nightly travel, and like him, be revived every morning. Since the sun is reborn every morning, the Royal Egyptian tombs were built in the West. It is not a civilization with a morbid fascination with death, but the opposite, life, for eternity. This is where lay the big misunderstanding about ancient Egyptian civilization. Gold mask of general and high priest Undjebauendjed, from the Royal Necropolis of Tanis, one of the four intact Egyptian tombs found by Pierre Montet, in 19. For the ancient Egyptians, the gods’ flesh was made of the same substance as the sun, gold. The aging sun god Ra was described as having “ his bones turned into silver, his flesh into gold, and his hair into real lapis-lazuli”. It could be melted and fashioned without ever tarnishing, so it seemed eternal. In the desert one could find in rocks a metal of the same color as the sunshine. And the balance of this fine clockwork of life was the sun. So they perceived a divine harmony in the world around them. Each year the Nile fertilized the dry land. At night, instead of seeing obscurity and confusion, they saw order, as the stars moved in unison.Įach day the sun brought life to the world.

But then from the water emerged an island, the sun, the gods, and on the earth mound lush vegetation grew. They envisioned that it started as an ocean of darkness and chaos. Why this fascination with gold? At the dawn of the ancient Egyptian civilization, people tried to make sense of the world around them. Pharaoh Thutmose III is recorded to have given 13,8 tons of gold to Amun, Osorkon I nearly 24 tons of gold to the sun god Ra. Gold, Flesh of Egyptian Gods Egyptian Gold Statuette of Amun, as statues of gods in Ancient Egypt were often made of gold, or were gilded.

Gold filling mummy