The ancient Egyptians believed that there was both heaven and hell. Hell was under the Earth, called the Duat. It was a place of evil and peril with poisonous snakes, lakes of fire and demons.

If you were to get past this terrible place you had to have spells written on the coffin. People also learned the contents of the 'Book of the Dead', a kind of passport through the underworld. You needed to recite the correct spells to get through the Duat. These spells were in the Book of the Dead.

The greatest danger of all was to fail the test where your heart was weighed against the feather of the goddess Ma'at. The heart of the deceased carried a record of all the past deeds of the person.

If the dead person passed the test and answered truthfully, the Ibis-headed god Djehuti (Thoth) proclaimed that the dead person is "True of Voice" and can go on. Otherwise the heart of the deceased was thrown to the Goddess Ammit, who ate the heart and it would be as if the deceased had never been.

The dead person then proceeded to the Fields of Wasir and reached a land that was very much like Egypt itself, but in the heavens.

So people had to pass the tests. But what else must they do to live forever? Gradually it came to be believed that the body must be preserved, too, and from this belief, and an accident of the desert climate, came mummification.

When people are buried in the dry salty sands of the desert, their bodies do not rot away, but instead dry out. This is a kind of natural mummification. But when the ancient Egyptians began burying their dead in coffins to protect them from wild animals the bodies began to decay. So the ancient Egyptians had to find a way of copying nature.

The earliest surviving Egyptian mummies date from around 3200 BC.

This change in practice was due to a change in belief. A part of a dead pharaoh's spirit, called his ka, was believed to remain with his body. Therefore, if the dead body did not have proper care, the dead pharaoh would not be able to take his place alongside Osiris and protect the living people of Egypt. It was therefore vital to preserve the pharaoh's body so that catastrophe would not befall the country.

The embalmers who mummified pharaohs and nobles took seventy days.

Mummification was a combination of embalming, saying the correct prayers and going through the correct rituals.

The embalmers first made a cut into the left side of the body with a flint knife (remember most of ancient Egyptian times were in the Stone Age!) and through this they removed the intestines, liver and lungs. These were dried out and stored in special vessels called canopic jars. The brains were pulled out through the nose using a long hook. The heart is not removed because it belongs with the body.

The flesh would naturally decay in the air, so to stop decay, the mummy was thoroughly dried out by putting it in crystals of a natural salt called natron. This dried it out in 40 days (scientists call this desiccation). Once it was dried it would not decay.

The brain cavity was then filled with a natural plastic-like substance.

The next stage was anointing with oils to keep the skin supple, while the body was packed with sawdust and linen so that it would keep its shape.

Finally the body was wrapped up in strips of linen. The wrapping began with the fingers and toes, then the head.

Then the body was wrapped, with lucky charms called amulets buried among the wrappings. The arms and legs were tied together. A papyrus scroll with spells from the Book of the Dead was placed between the wrapped hands. Each layer of bandage was covered with resin, a kind of natural glue.

A final cloth was wrapped around the body and a picture of the underworld god Osiris was painted on its surface.

All of this had to be done according to a strict ritual and prayers said at every important stage.

A final wrapping was added and a painted board placed on the mummy before it was placed in the first coffin.