Departed Alive: How the Ancient Egyptians Understood Death

"You have not departed dead, you have departed alive." With these words, an ancient Egyptian funerary text (Pyramid Texts Utterance 213) reassures the deceased that death is a beginning rather than an end. Death, ancient Egyptian mwt, marked the end of a physical, human life, but not the end of existence. Those who lived according to moral principles and cosmic order (maat), and who were supported by the proper rituals, could attain an eternal, blessed afterlife. In Egyptian belief, only those who had sinned against cosmic equilibrium suffered the "second death," a fate of eternal damnation and non-existence.