pharaohs

The pharaoh was supposedly much better than ordinary Egyptians, he was actually a god, the son of the Sun god, Ra. When a pharaoh died, it was believed that he joined Ra in his day boat (the Sun) as he sailed across the sky. Once a pharaoh or other member of the Egyptian royal family died, their body had to be prepared for burial. His body was taken to the embalmer’s workshop. There his …

…existence for kings and nobles. Since Egyptians highly believed in an afterlife, they also believed in a magical spell that aimed at providing a substitute to set forth in a place of the dead man in case he shall be called upon to perform any menial labor in the afterlife. It occurs among the other magical spells written on rolls of papyrus deposited with the dead, but even more frequently on the small human statuettes.