The analytical study of mummies throughout the world has given historians and archaeologists a good understanding of how the mummification process was carried out as well as the changes in practice, and by implication, in beliefs. The most important source material are the bodies themselves. The few texts that have survived, such as the Ritual of Embalming, focus on the rituals and the more practical and gruesome aspects of mummification are largely ignored. Ancient Egyptian sources on the treatment of the human body after death are scarce, with only a few inscriptions and funerary images.
