Mostly dead: what archaeology reveals about death and resurrection

UK courts recently allowed a teenager's body to be cryogenically frozen, but the desire to preserve our dead for resurrection is nothing new

When a judge's decision to allow a 14 year old to have her body preserved through cryonics after her death hit the headlines, it prompted numerous opinion pieces on the rights of the dying and the dead and discussions about promises of life after death. But while the technology might be changing, these debates are age-old, as humans have long attempted to ensure their place in the afterlife, or avoid it all together.

7000 years ago in South America, the Chinchorro people began to artificially mummify their dead, but it would be another 2000 years before there was any evidence that early human cultures believed in resurrection. The ancient Egyptians are the most well-known practitioners of mummification and while it was not strictly required for resurrection in the afterlife, it was seen to provide the best opportunity for a smooth transition from this life to the next.