When one thinks of Ancient Egypt and their burial practices, mummification is one of the first things to come to mind. However, Ancient Egypt had several other burial practices than just mummification such as, mastabas, kings having two tombs, and pyramids, just to name a few.
Ancient Egypt was once divided into Upper and Lower Egypt. (Lower actually being Northern Egypt and Upper being Southern Egypt) With two different sections of Egypt, there only makes sense that there will be more than one kingdom. When you newly unify a country its difficult to keep everyone happy when they no longer have their own king for their section of the country. To solve this problem the kings of dynasty 1 started the tradition of having two tombs, one in Abydos, the southern royal cemetery, and one in Saqqara the northern royal cemetery. By having two tombs the king would secure the happiness of both Upper and Lower Egypt.
 |
| Palace Facade style of tombs in Saqqara |
 |
| Mastaba style of tomb at Abydos |
Mastabas, like the one shown above, are common at Abydos. They were built this way because they resembled a shrine-like rounded top and can be looked at as housing a divine king. While at Saqqara, a palace facade style of tomb was more common. This was more like a palace looking type of tomb.
  |
| Stepped Pyramid of Djoser & the Giza Pyramids |
|
Ancient Egyptians moved from one-level tombs to step pyramids, which can be said to resemble mastabas stacked on top of each other, such as the Step-Pyramid complex of Djoser. And from step-pyramids they went to true pyramids, which would be the Giza pyramids.
