The Ancient Egyptians believed that the bodies of the dead must be preserved if their souls were to live on in the afterworld. The mummification of corpses was therefore an essential requirement of Egyptian religion. In this richly illustrtated volume the mummies are examined in the context of Egyptian funerary ritual, with special attention accorded to mummy masks and cases, as well as the amulets and other artefacts that were buried with the deceased and to be seen only by the souls of the dead. The recent history of the Egyptian mummies, from their discovery by Europeans to modern techniques of computer analysis, is a particular feature of this book. It shows how radiological technology, antibody research, DNA and simulated reconstruction, and spatial analyses through three-dimensional computer images have expanded our knowledge of people who died thousands of years ago and of their everyday life in Ancient Egypt. These fascinating recent discoveries are presented in this volume.