Journey into the Afterlife
The most interesting things can be found in unlikely places. In an ordinary suburb in San Jose, California there stands a very unusual building. Originally built in the 1920s, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum contains the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts on the West Coast. With more and more artifacts being collected into the 1960s, new buildings were erected to house them all. The remodeled expansion of the main building, added in the early 1960s, features something that can still cause fear in guests who visit, a tomb. This tomb is a replica, assembled from a conglomeration of common tombs from the Beni Hassan cemetery in Ancient Egypt, near the modern city of Minya, and is dedicated to Khnumhotep II.
Khnumhotep II lived in an amazing time in Egypt. The 1st Intermediate Period had already ended in 2055 BCE giving way to the 11th Dynasty, the first of the Middle Kingdom. Under the pharaohs ultimate rule, regions of Egypt, called nomes (or sepat in ancient Egyptian), were under the more direct control of nomarchs, similar to governors today. Khnumhotep II, one of these nomarchs during the 12th dynasty, represented the Oryx nome, the 16th of Upper Egypt.
Buried in his elaborate tomb 4000 years ago Khnumhotep II surrounded himself with treasures, carvings, and paintings, all things that would help him create and navigate to his own perfect afterlife in the Underworld. As this all needed to begin long before he passed, Khnumhotep II hired many artisans to complete the work as quickly as possible. Carving out the sandstone from beneath the mountain, they created the passageways, large halls, and staircases all leading to his final resting place.
Before they could create the tomb, the artisans had to find a perfect location. The mountains, natural pyramids, were an easier, and less labor-intensive way to represent the sun’s rays, the gift from Re, and the path to the heavens. Walking up to the doorway, the hieroglyph carvings become clear, it’s a prayer, praising the gods and asking them to give favor to Khnumhotep II. For this inscription, the glyphs are read from right to left, in the direction that the glyphs are facing, almost as if you were having a conversation. The first line and a half read, “All hail the sun god Re, who rises in the sky’s eastern horizon. Behold! Behold! Khnumhotep!”
Walking carefully on the uneven, chiseled, ground, entering the first passage. Here, darkness surrounds you, blending the walls with the ceiling and the floor. It’s a portal, leading you to a room lit with torches and lined with columns. These carved columns, which are made to look like papyrus reed bundles, bring nature, and possibly a bit of home, into the first chamber. This room is the last that would have been open to the family, and is made to bridge the gap between the living and the dead.
In Egyptian mythology, the afterlife is not really an end of life, especially if you were rich. It’s more of a continuation, or it’s whatever you want it to be. But, because your spirit is still alive, it still needs to "eat". To keep the ba (personality) alive, families bring food and drink and put it in, or next to, the offering bowl in front of a false door, a stone carved optical illusion, mimicking a hallway to the afterlife. Instead of leaving the food there to rot, the family would bless the food, reciting specific incantations to release its spirit, and then take it outside to have a reunion picnic. In some cases, a priest would have been paid to enact these rituals if the family was too far away to do it themselves. In cases like that the priest would bring the food back to the temple once the job was complete.
Sometimes, neither the family nor any priest could perform the rituals to feed the ba. For times like that, Khnumhotep II and his artisans created a contingency plan. On the wall opposite the false door is a large carving depicting Khnumhotep II, sitting in front of a table piled high with all sorts of food, while underneath the table are containers of wine and beer. Just like Khnumhotep II has all of his favorite foods, the pet monkey, carved beneath the chair, is eating dates out of a bowl. Finally, the hieroglyphs around the top of the relief are the incantations needed to bring out the spirit of the food. Highly useful, because the ancient Egyptians believed that anything carved, sculpted, or painted within a tomb becomes real in the afterlife, therefore, with this relief, Khnumhotep’s ba would be fed for all eternity.
Further into the dark is another doorway, which would have been sealed after the body was initially buried to prevent grave robberies. Through this now-open passage, 11 stone steps lead down to the burial chamber, where the walls are covered in colorful paintings. These paintings tell the story of how Khnumhotep II will spend eternity, and how he’ll get there.
In the middle of the room is a pit with an raised empty sarcophagus to symbolise the common occurrence of grave robbery. Coffins and tombs were broken into routinely for the amulets and jewelry inside the wrappings. This is also why there is a rectangular cut-out section in the middle of the eastern wall, the builders came back to find the statue that they hid within.
Starting with the eastern wall. This is the wall of the morning, of daily life. Here, Khnumhotep II continues his duties as nomarch, watching over his servants on the land stretching from the Nile to the mountains. In this world, the animals and people are created through painting, like shadows, so no real people or animals have to suffer, or die, to create a perfect afterlife for another. The only other real person in these paintings is the woman standing behind Khnumhotep II, on an elevated platform is his wife. The elevated platform, and the fact that her legs are painted together rather than how Khnumhotep is shown, means that she died before her husband and before the room was painted.
Above, and in front of Khnumhotep II, there are lines of animals (both real and fictional), and farmers, fishermen, and artisans. Further to the right end of the painting, the shadow people are celebrating, and dancing, beautifully enjoying their shadow afterlives.
At the top right corner of the eastern wall, is the only place where the paintings are incomplete. This suggests that Khnumhotep II died at least 70 days before the painting were finished. This is how long it takes to mummify a body, and the body must be buried once the process is complete. But, instead of leaving the area blank, the artist depicted an artist painting on the wall, as a promise for it to be completed in the afterlife.
The southern wall shows two versions of Khnumhotep II taking part in his two favorite activities, hunting and fishing. On each side he stands atop his Nile boats and shows that he creates ma’at, or order, and justice from chaos. At the same time, he brags about himself, making sure that he stays young and strong forever. Diving deeper into the meaning of this side of the mural, the ma’at is demonstrated by the chaos of the birds flying in every direction as they are frightened by his hunting cats, in opposition to the left version of Khnumhotep II who has lined up the three birds in his hand, and the right spearing two fish with one hit.
The western wall, or the wall of death, the setting sun, and the afterlife, is where Khnumhotep II's journey truly begins. Here he must prove himself pure of heart before he will be welcomed into the afterlife by the god Osiris. In this painting, unlike the others, Khnumhotep II and his wife are finely dressed to impress the gods in front of them.
In Egyptian mythology there are tests that must be passed. This particular tomb art depicts what might be the most well-known of these tests: the heart weighing ceremony. It begins with a series of 42 questions, one from each of 42 gods and goddesses, which are all recorded by the god of knowledge and writing, Toth/Thoth. All of these can only be answered honestly, as it is believed that it was not possible to lie to the gods. All the answers must be ‘no’ as well. For example, the question would be “Have you ever killed anyone?” and the answer must be, “Hail Isis no, I have never killed anyone.” The questions would continue and become more difficult to answer ‘no’ to questions like, “Have you ever lied?”
With each ‘yes’ answer the heart, which is weighed against an ostrich feather on the scales of Ma'at, becoming increasingly heavy. If the heart where to touch the ground, the demon goddess, Amut the Devourer (an amalgamation of a crocodile head, the upper body of a lion, and the lower body of a hippo), will eat the heart, and the person along with their soul will cease to exist. Khnumhotep II prepared for everything, by giving extra praise to Anubis, the jackal headed god of mummification, to win a favor. Anubis is painted adding a weight to the side of the scales with the feather in case Khnumhotep II has done things that would weigh on his heart. Because the next panel is drawn, the heart is light enough to pass the test.
Here, Horus leads Khnumhotep II by the hand into his afterlife, where Osiris, Hero God of the Underworld, his wife and sister Isis, and other sister Nemphis, are all waiting to welcome him to paradise.
The last painting section in the burial chamber is on the ceiling. The goddess of the heavens, Nut, is stretched across the sky wearing her gown of stars. She is said to give birth to the sun each morning and swallow it again each night while giving birth to the moon. This cycle encapsulates the birth, death, and rebirth of every generation, and how Nut will be watching over and protecting this burial throughout time.
This tomb, composite or not, is a perfect example for learning about the culture of traveling to the Egyptian afterlife. It may look frightening on the outside, but inside, the ancient Egyptians only want to bring nature, protection, family, fun, and love along for the ride.
My information came from working as a tour guide and the script we memorized. If you live near or plan to visit San Jose, California, USA, stop by and see this museum, located at 1660 Park Ave, San Jose, CA 95191. For the rest, check out a 3D walkthrough head over to
Tomb Photos were lifted from the walkthrough, the cover photo is my own from the temple of Isis on Philae, Egypt.