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Obviously, modern-day Egyptians are Muslims, which is a monotheistic religion similar to Christianity which teaches that the righteous will go to Paradise after death and find eternal bliss. But regarding the Ancient Egyptians, it was a bit more complicated. They believed that the afterlife was a place called 'The Land of Two Fields', and that the god Osiris determined a person's eligibility to enter this Paradise. In order to gain entry to the afterlife you had to have done your best to be good in this world and to have not committed serious sin- the amount of good or bad you had done was measured in how light or heavy your heart was. After death, your heart was weighed by the goddess Maat- if it was too heavy, then you didn't go on to the afterlife and were stuck forever in the limbo of death. But if it was light enough, you were entitled to enter the boat that carried you across the River Styx to Paradise, which was piloted by the ferryman Charon. Also, in order to enter the afterlife you had to have your body preserved and embalmed, and to have your name written down somewhere. The Belief was that the soul consisted of two parts, the Ba and the Ka- every morning, your Ba flew off to keep watch over your surviving family, whilst your Ka went to enjoy the afterlife. Both parts returned to your body at night to sleep until the following morning. If something happened to your mortal remains, or your name was not recorded somewhere, then the Ba and the Ka would get lost on their way home and never again be able to return to Paradise, nor to watch over your family.

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7y ago

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