But it came out collectively, with the rest of the colon, in two sections. The stomach was next, then the liver. That's a large, dome-shaped organ, and it's like delivering a small child through a tiny opening. Wade was forced to extend the three-inch slit by two inches. After the liver came the lungs.
Lungs are like a wet sponge.
They're connected to the heart, so I had to cut a lot of vessels off them. For this, Wade used a bronze knife, much sharper than the copper blade. When the deceased approached Osiris in the afterlife, his heart would be weighed. If it was as light as the feather of Maat, the goddess of truth, the person was a step closer to being accepted by the gods. In addition to collecting water, hastening desiccation, and absorbing foul odors, the packets helped preserve the natural contours of the body for its resurrection in the afterlife.