Serving all of these Gods was a gigantic Priesthood, which grew progressively larger through Egyptian history. As has been said, the Chief Clergy served as intermediaries for Pharaoh, stepping aside when He performed the daily rites in person. Still, the Chief Clergy of Egypt were extraordinarily powerful, wielding considerable political clout in all periods and controlling the great wealth of the Temples. Each God had His or Her own Chief Cleric, who served in the God’s main Temple in Their regional center. The most powerful in early times were the Chief Priest of Re in the city of On (Heliopolis) and the Chief Priest of Ptah in Nopf (Memphis). By the New Kingdom it was the Chief Priest of Amon in Wast (Thebes) who was pre-eminent and enjoyed tremendous influence in the state. The Chief Priesthood of other Deities, such as Isis and Osiris in Abtu (Abydos) or Bast in Per-bastet (Bubastis) were also very important in their region, but had less influence in the government.
Below the Chief Priesthood, whose titles varied according to their Deity, were many lesser Priesthood termed Hem Neter (Servant of the Deity) who served in the great Temples, and minor Priesthood carrying the title Wab (Pure, or Holy) who presided over the smaller Temples and Shrines of villages. In addition there were a variety of specialized Priesthoods including the funereal and mortuary Priests called Hem Ka who served the Ancestors.
The Priesthood were under strictly enforced taboos regarding diet, dress, and sexual abstinence (complete celibacy was required): but only when they were on duty. A Priest or Priestess usually served for a few weeks or a few months at a time depending upon the Temple and the period: the rest of the year they lived normally. Often the leading Priesthoods were awarded to members of the royal family or officers of the court, and sometimes a person might hold several Priesthoods in several Temples, serving each in different times of year. The more important the Priesthood, the more service was involved.
Often there was a loosely hereditary quality to the Priesthoods, with children of previous Priesthood tending to become Priesthood as well, though the Priesthood was not limited to these Hereditaries. As time wore on and the power of the Egyptian Kingdom waned, this loosely hereditary quality became rigid, with the Priesthood ossifying into a purely hereditary profession set apart from society and dominated by Priestly dynasties –but this belongs to the late and decadent periods following the New Kingdom, when Egypt came to be ruled by foreign dynasties.
But by far the most famous aspect of ancient Egyptian religion are their beliefs about the afterlife and the elaborate mortuary ceremonies they undertook to ensure that afterlife. The magnificent tombs of Egypt’s royalty and nobility are great works of art and one of our principle sources of information about their daily lives, and their MUMMIFIED bodies have been a source of fascination to other peoples for millennia.
Humankind has practiced ceremonial burial since Neanderthal times, and some Cro Magnon burials were quite elaborate, so the Egyptian concern over the final resting place was nothing new. The early Egyptians buried their dead in unremarkable, shallow graves at the edge of the desert which bordered their communities along the narrow strip of fertile land created by the Nile’s annual flood. This form of burial exposed the corpse to the hot and drying desert sands, and had the effect of naturally mummifying it. Observing this the Egyptians came to feel that the idea of the body being preserved long after death was natural and desirable. As their civilization advanced and its prosperity increased, the Egyptians began to build larger and more enduring tombs –but this had the unexpected effect of preventing the body’s natural mummification by shielding it from the sands. So the Egyptians began the long process of developing an artificial means of mummification. At first they merely covered the body with a rigid shell of resin-soaked linen, so that its outer appearance was preserved even while the actual body decomposed within. But soon they learned to use drying agents to preserve the actual body to an extraordinary degree. Eventually they perfected a process of mummification which took on average about three months to complete, and included removing most of the body’s internal organs, and drying the flesh with Natron (Het Jeryt), a sodium which absorbs moisture and acts as a natural antiseptic.
To receive the mummies so skillfully prepared, gloriously decorated tombs were created, and stocked with articles from every day life for the soul’s enjoyment in the Otherworld. These might be the actual objects a person used in life, or they might be painted representations or miniature models of things they had possessed or wished they had possessed in life: the belief being that these would be magically animated in the Otherworld. In our terms these paintings and models served as Keys to the things they represented, so that the Spirit could create and use them in astral form having crossed over. Every good thing the family could afford would be included in full size or miniature in the tomb. In elaborate tombs these might extend to miniature buildings, cattle, servants, etc…
Most tombs included USHABTIS. An Ushabti was a figure of a person shown in mummy form, intended to be animated in the Otherworld to serve the deceased in various ways: a kind of Astral servant.
Great care was taken that the name and face of the deceased should be preserved, as this was considered essential to the soul’s remaining as an Ancestor. Sculptures were included so that if the mummy were damaged or destroyed the soul would still have a likeness to connect to. The Egyptians believed that if the face were destroyed, and the name forgotten, the soul would whither away: in our terms, that the soul would cease to act as Ancestor, forget its old persona, and move on to other lifetimes. For this reason also, to preserve the soul as an Ancestor, the Egyptians performed frequent mortuary rituals to maintain their bond with the Ancestor, and to show their regard for it. In these ceremonies the soul would be called upon and offerings would be made, either directly by the family, or by Mortuary Priesthood hired for the purpose. The family would communicate with their Ancestors in various ways, including writing letters to them –of which some examples have been preserved.