Eternal Life

Egyptian Roots

The concept of eternal life—that is, living forever—originated with Africans in the Nile Valley and spread to other parts of the continent and the world. Actually, it was believed by the earliest Africans that death occurred when the life force left the body. However, all the ceremonies associated with the funerary care of the corpse ensured that the person would live forever because the various activities of the priests after the person had died, such as the opening of the mouth (wep r), sought to restore a person's connection to the ka that had left the body at death.

In addition, the ancient Africans believed that this restoration would lead to the physical attributes of the person being restored. This could be done, however, only if the ba's attachment to the body was released. Therefore, the union of the ka, the life force that had left the body at death, and the ba, the personality, created an entity referred to in the literature as the akb, meaning the genuine or effective entity.

To have eternal life, ankb nebeb, was to have a relatively normal existence in the sense that the eternal life was modeled on the journey of the sun. One's tomb represented this personal journey through the Dwat, the underworld, and the meeting with the mummified Ausar. Because the tomb was also the personalized Dwat, it was here that the bodily preservation existed that allowed the ba to return to the body during the night's journey, rising again to a new vitality in the morning.

The Book of the Coming Forth by Day and Going Forth by Night is a collection of formulas written to express the manner and rites of movement through the perils of eternal life. It is not a journey without difficulty, but the difficulties can be overcome if the rituals were used that would prevent one from a second death in the Dwat. What one wanted was to have eternal memory as a function also of eternal life.

In the tomb of the 18th dynasty monarch Paheri, regional ruler of Nekhen, it is written that his life was happening again without his ba being kept from his divine corpse, but being reunited with the akh and therefore he should rise each day and return every evening. Indeed, it is said that a lamp will be lit for him every night until the sun emerged and lit his breast. It is only then that Paheri will be told, “Congratulations! You have entered into your house of the forever living!”

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