In this survey, the author gives an account of Egyptian burial customs, the reasons for their existence and how they changed in response to developments in religion. The author describes the tombs and the objects inside them - furniture, food, inscriptions, temples for animal gods - and shows how the Egyptians coped with the problems of security involved in guarding the afterlife of their dead. He goes on to demonstrate how recent scientific developments have added a new dimension to research, enabling scholars to trace family relationships, identify prevalent diseases and sometimes to discover the full pathological case histories of mummies, producing a detailed picture of this culture.