Extra Credit Project
Anthropology 5: Magic, Science and Religion
Q.1 Sherit Mummy
Her appearance: It is pegged that Sherit was mummified two millennia ago. Upon the ruthless blow on her by death, Mummy Sherit was between four and five years( averagely four and a half).Since Sherit shows no suggestive sign of physical injury, she must have died of an abrupt illness. The front teeth of Sherit project out a little and going by the records from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, an ancient Egyptian King named King Tu had the same characteristic of teeth. This means that she was a constituent of the royal family. Sherit was mummified in the Egyptian Roman Period. Sherit is an unusual mummification because the child mummies were hard to embalm since the process was costly. Mummy Sherit is: RC 22.
Q2. Shabti figurine
Shabtis were made of various materials such as being carved from wood, moulded of clay, hewed from stone or made from wax. The Shabti were moulded or carved in the shape of a person with clear facial features. The figurine of Shabti in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum is RC 1258.The Shabtis were believed to perform a particular tasks (listeners) after one died. The Shabtis were not possessed by everyone. They were preserved for the royals only and not the ordinary people.
Q3.Animal Mummy
An example of an animal mummy is an Apis Bull Head number two on the museum table.The skull of the Apis Bull is smothered clean.The horns are left intact.A kind of strap is tied over its jaws and another one runs from one base of the tweo horns to another.On either side whereby its real eyes could have been,artificial glass eyes are placed on either side.It’s RC is 367.
Why animals were mummified
In the ancient Egypt,animals were mummified for various reasons.In the ancient Egypt,animals were handled with utmost respect because the early Egyptians saw them as independent beings.Some of the animals were mummified because they were adored pets and the people who owned them had requeated so on their death wills.Among the pets tha were mummified were cats,hawks and dogs.The second reason was to provide food to the mummified people in their afterlife.In this case,they were stored as mummified meat and stored in the burial tombs.Some of the animals that were mummified to provide food were sheep,geese and sometimes fish.The third reason was because they were sacred animals.In ancient Egypt,some animals were believed to represent the gods and so were reared for mummification and then buried within the temples according to a particular god’s favour.Some of the animals mummified for this purpose were vultures,hawks,cats and dogs.The fourth reason was for religious offerings.When the ancient Egyptians went to worship,they carried with them animals for offerings.Some of this animals were: babay crocodiles,gazelles, and ibis.
Q4.A sistrum
A sistrum was shaped like a bell.Its RC number is .Since the Egyptians considered music vital for a good functioning temple service,the sistrum filled this task.It could be used by the musicians and the songstresses and according to Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum.The deity they were closely linked to was goddess Hathor.They were also said to be performed in social gatherings such as meetings.
Q5.Akhenaten Gallery
Changes introduced by Akhenaten in this period
Among the changes that were introduced by King Akhenaten is that he closed the temples of tyhe other gods and banned worshipping.Then King Akhenaten shutted down all the other temples and went back to Tell el-Amarna and it is at that place that he established a new city for himself.Due to the Akhenatens hatred of the ancient gods,her sent his loyal workers to all over Egypt with the objective of destroying all the names of other gods including Amun-Ra.The period that Akhenaten brought about those changes went on until his third successor King Tut’s General of the Army,Horemheb,erased all the changes that had been brought about by Akhenaten and the predecessor of Horemheb had smacked a mighty blow to the accomplishments of Akhenaten by reopening the temples that had been shut down by him.
The changes that had been brought about by Akhenaten did not last longer after either the deaths or the disappearances of Akhenaten and Nefertiti because to the numerous gods of Egypt,the temples had been the drive powers that powered the economy of Egypt and after the temples were shut down it was no more.