Egyptians of the period believed that death was not an end, but a transition.  They also believed that those who passed through the death process would have many of the needs and wants associated with life on the Earth.  Furthermore they believed that in the course of their future existence those who had died would again inhabit the bodies that they had during their previous existences on Earth.  Following out these beliefs the Egyptians put into their tombs a full assortment of the food, clothing, implements and instruments which they had used during their Earth life.  They also embalmed the bodies of their dead with the utmost care and buried them in carefully hidden tombs where they would be found by their former users and occupied for the Day of Judgment.

Holding such views, preparation for the phase of life subsequent to death was a chief object of the early Egyptian rulers and their subjects.  One of the preoccupations of each new occupant of the throne was the selection of his burial place.  Early in his reign he began the construction of suitable quarters for the reception of his embalmed body.  The great pyramids were such tombs.  Other monarchs constructed rock-hewn chambers for the reception of their bodies.  In these chambers in addition to a room for a sarcophagus were associated rooms in which every imaginable need of the dead was stored:  food, clothing, furniture, jewelry, weapons.

Adjacent to the royal tomb favored nobles received permission to build their own tombs, similarly equipped but on a smaller, less grandiose scale than that of the pharaoh.  By this means the courtiers who had attended the pharaoh in his life-time would be at hand to perform similar services in the after death existence.

Construction and maintenance of temples and tombs absorbed a considerable part of Egypt’s economic surplus.  These drains on the economy grew more extensive as the country became more populous and more productive.  Thanks to the lack of rain in and near the Nile Valley and despite the depleting activities of persistent vandalism these constructs have stood for thirty centuries as monuments to one of the most extensive and elaborate civilizations known to historians.  Despite the absence of detailed records, Egyptian achievements under the Old Kingdom indicate an abundance of food, wood, metal and other resources far in excess of survival requirements; a population sufficiently extensive to produce the necessaries of existence and a surplus which made it possible for the lords temporal and spiritual to erect such astonishing and enduring monuments; high levels of technical skills among woodsmen, quarrymen and building crews; the transport facilities by land and water required to assemble the materials, equipment and man power; the foresight, planning, timing and over-all management involved in such constructs as the pyramids, temples and tombs which have withstood the wear and tear of thousands of years; the willingness