More information about Egypt...

It was very important in Ancient Egypt to have a mummified body. You need a preserved body so that your Ba and Ka, the two pieces of your soul, could find their way home at night back to your tomb. The ancient Egyptian believed that the afterlife was a real and beautiful place, where they would spend their days forever in peace and happiness after their death. Without a body, the Ba and Ka would get lost. And they would no longer be able to reach the heavenly Land of Two Fields.

The poor placed the bodies of their dead relatives out in the desert sand. The bodies dried naturally in the sun. That was a perfectly good system. It assured the dead a place in the afterlife (provided their heart was light from doing lots of good deeds while they were alive.)

The rich could afford to be more fussy. They hired professional mummy makers, to help them look their very best. 

The ankh is a history mystery. 

The ankh is an ancient Egyptian symbol. It looks rather like a key. The ankh symbol was used in hieroglyphics and in designs. One of the artifacts carefully placed in King Tut's tomb was an ankh. The ankh must have meant something important to the ancient Egyptians, and that's all we know. Historians have made a few guesses at what the Egyptian ankh might have symbolized. Some historians think the ankh was the symbol for the key that opened the door to the afterlife. Others think it might have represented the key that turned on the annual flooding of the Nile each year. Of course, the ankh might not even represent a key. 

One thing we do know. The Egyptians used symbols to represent important things. The red crown, for example, is the symbol for Lower Egypt. The white crown was the symbol for Upper Egypt. The lotus flower symbolized rebirth, or the coming of spring. And the ankh? It's a history mystery.