mummification

So I have to be honset: I'm not much of a blogger. In fact, I don't think I've ever done it before, so bear with me as I try to type out my jumbled, often nonsensical thoughts.

Yesterday, we all went to the valley of the kings and the valley of the queens, which are the tombs in which the ancient kings and queens of Egypt were buried. Clearly. Anyway, they werent much to look at from the outside, intentionally actually, because these tombs were supposed to be hidden in the desert mountains so as to stave off grave robbers.

I didn't really know what to expect [I suppose cracking the spine on my guidebook would be helpful], but I kind of pictured the tombs to not be nearly as ornate and well preserved as they are. The valley of the kings was more impressive than the valley of the queens, with larger, more colorful and ornately decorated rooms and hallways.

While I was going through them, I began to think about the mummification process and all that goes into preservation of the body after death, and how this is not such a far distance from the way the body is treated these days. The mummifcation process is a rather long, intensive process that requires the draining of blood, taking out all the organs but the heart [which is taken out and reinsterted], and fill up the body with salt. These days, we have plastic surgery, which is kind of the same thing--parts of the body are taken away, saline solution is put in, fat is drained out, and this is all in an attempt to create a more perfect body and [I assume] a more perfect life after surgery. LIkewise, the mummification/entombing process is done in order to preserve the body after this life because it was thought that the afterlife would be more perfect than this one.

Now I have to admit there are some glaring differences between the two-most notably the religious aspect. Ancient egyptians were mummified as part of their religious beliefs, while plastic surgery, in all its various forms, is not. Or at least I hope it's not. But that still doesn't change the fact that we, as humans, view our bodies as malleable, able to be re/created in to something that we once were not. And that people will spend significant sums of money and time to make the body, the life [even afterlife] better.

But is it really better?