What did the mummy mean to the ancient Egyptians?

The body made to last so that the person could live again. The sign also means “image” or “form”.

What the sign shows: A wrapped body standing upright.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: Central to his whole argument: he derives the title Christ from karast, his spelling of the Egyptian word for the embalmed dead.
What scholars say now: Linguists do not accept the link. Christos is Greek for “anointed”, translating the Hebrew word messiah.
Where you see it today: “Mummy” comes from an Arabic word for bitumen, which people once thought coated the bodies.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 428 times across the book. Book IV, p. 217: “Messiah, Christ and the word krst”; Book IV, p. 213: “A spirit body, not a corpse”; Book XII, p. 851: “Lazarus as an Egyptian mummy”.
Signs that look like it: Djed pillar, Ka and Ba. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “The mummy-Osiris in Amenta is the figure of a sleeping deity.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book VIII, p. 477)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Mummy. The app’s Symbol Trainer reads 42 signs this way, each with Massey’s own words and the page they stand on.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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