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which the Egyptians held as to the relationship of the component parts of the material and spiritual man. Most peoples have divided man into three parts, body, soul, and spirit; but the Egyptian system of the human economy was more complex. The material part of a man was the khat S, or body. Through mummification, and the prayers which were recited over it after that process, the body obtained a degree of knowledge, and power, and glory, whereby it became henceforth lasting and incorruptible. This glorified body was called a Sāḥu When a man was

born into the world there was also born with him an abstract individuality, or personality, which remained with him all the days of his life, and could only be separated permanently from him by death. To this personality is given the name Ka U, a word which has been translated by "double, "genius, image, character, person, self," etc.

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When the Ka left the body at death it was necessary for the living to find a habitation, and to provide meat, and drink, and shelter for it. Otherwise it would be obliged to wander about in search of food, and if it failed to find it, would return and wreak vengeance on the living. Provision was therefore made for the Ka in the tomb of the dead person of whom it had once formed a part. First a statue was made in stone, or wood, and fashioned to represent the deceased. Over this a long series of ceremonies was performed, and at the end of them the deceased was declared to have obtained the powers of talking, thinking, walking, etc., and the statue was supposed to be in a fit state to receive the Ka should it be pleased to enter into it and dwell there. A special chamber was set apart in the tomb for the statue, and through an opening in one of the walls which communicated with the hall of the tomb wherein the offerings were made, the Ka inhabiting this statue was able to enjoy the smell of the incense, meat, wine, and other offerings. It had power to leave the statue and to wander about at will on earth and in the Other World; and there are suggestions in the texts that it might take up its abode in the body of a living man from which his Ka had temporarily gone forth for some purpose of its own.

With the Ka was closely connected the Ab, or heart, which was regarded as the seat of life and the source of the

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emotions; it possessed two phases, one material and the other spiritual. It corresponds with the "dual soul" of many tribes in the Sûdân at the present day. The spiritual heart could be stolen from a man by the exercise of magical powers; and this belief survives among certain peoples in Central Africa at the present day. Another attribute of a man was the Sekhem or vital power, which was intimately connected with the Ka, and seems to have possessed a form similar to it. The mental and spiritual attributes of man were grouped in the Khu, the exact meaning of which it is very hard to define. The Khu seems to have been a shining, translucent, transparent, intangible essence of a man, and the word is on the whole perhaps best rendered by spirit. The Khu escaped from the tomb and made its way to heaven, where it joined the "imperishable spirits who lived with Ra. It is probable that the Sāḥu, Ab, Sekhem, and Khu were all attributes of the Ka.

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That part of a man which was, beyond all doubt, believed to be everlasting and to enjoy eternal existence in heaven in a state of glory, was the Ba, soul; it was associated with the Ka, and, like the heart, appears to have possessed a dual nature. It could live in a state of invisibility, and yet could take form at pleasure; it is often depicted as a human-headed hawk,

The object of all the ceremonies which were performed over the mummy or the statue in the tomb was to bring back the soul from heaven to the body in which it dwelt on earth, and when the priest told the kinsfolk of the deceased that "Horus had recovered his eye," ie., that the soul had returned to the body, they felt that everlasting life and happiness were secured for him. The souls of the blessed lived with the "spirits" in the heaven of Rā, and when they appeared in the sky they did so under the form of stars.

The soul was usually accompanied by the Khaibit

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of the Greeks, and the umbra of the Romans. It had an independent existence, and was able to separate itself from the body at will, but hostile fiends might attack it, and therefore the deceased prays in the Book of the Dead

(Chapter XCII): "Let not be shut in my soul, let not "be fettered my shadow, let a way be opened for my soul and "for my shadow, and let them see the Great God." It is very difficult to know where the functions of each of these parts of a man began and ended, for even the Egyptians became confused in dealing with them, and the texts often contradict each other. The main facts are, however, quite clear. The Egyptians believed in the existence of body, double, spirit, soul, and shadow, at all periods, and the views which they held about each are best understood by reference to the religious beliefs which exist at the present time among the A-Žandê, or Nyam-Nyam, the Bantu, the Mañbattu, and cognate tribes in Central Africa. Under the influence of foreigners the primitive views became modified as time went on, but in all essentials the Egyptians who served under the Romans believed what their ancestors believed 5,000 years before.

CHAPTER VIII.

EMBALMING. THE EGYPTIAN TOMB.

Mummy is the name given to the body of a human. being, or creature, which has been preserved from decay by means of spices, gums, natron, bitumen, etc.; strictly speaking it should only be given to the body preserved by bitumen, for "mummy" is derived from a word which appears in Arabic under the form mûmîâ, and means "bitumen." The oldest preserved bodies known were prepared with salt and soda, and bitumen was certainly not used on a large scale for embalming purposes before the XXIInd dynasty, about B.C. 900. The embalmed body, swathed in linen, was called by the Egyptians qes which has passed into Coptic under the form kôs. The word "mummy" is not of Egyptian origin.

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In the latter part of the Neolithic Period the Egyptians, in some places at least, decapitated and dismembered the dead, but subsequently, probably as a result of change in religious thought, they took steps to preserve them. At first bodies were merely dried in the sun, and then placed in a hole in the ground, in a sitting position, just as they are to this day by the A-Zandê; later they were laid on one side, with the legs bent upwards, and their knees near the chin. Evisceration of some kind appears to have been practised, but not of a very elaborate character. The finest and most complete example of the class of preserved bodies which were buried in a crouching position is exhibited in the First Egyptian Room, Case A. Here we see, lying on his left side, a Predynastic Egyptian, with hair of a reddish tint; the knees are bent to a level with the top of the breast, and the hands are placed before the face. He was dolichocephalic, or long-headed, and he was both physically and mentally entirely different from the Dynastic Egyptians, whose skulls, in respect of measurements, occupy a middle position between the dolichocephalic and the brachycephalic, or

short-headed. Round about the body are vessels which held food, flint weapons, etc. At this period the body was sometimes wrapped in the skin of some animal, or rolled up in a reed mat.

Soon after the beginning of the Dynastic Period, probably as the result of the growth and development of the cult of Osiris, the Egyptians began to devote more care to the preservation of the bodies of the dead, and the earliest known examples prove that the brain and viscerae were removed, and that the placing of bodies in a crouching position in graves was abandoned, at all events among the ruling classes. The doctrine of Osiris taught that the human body was a precious thing, and men took care to embalm it and swathe it in linen, so that it might be ready for the return of the soul to it, when it would begin a new life in the kingdom of Osiris.

The Egyptian texts supply no details of the methods employed in embalmment, but classical writers describe the processes at some length, and the mummies which have been unrolled and examined prove that their statements are on the whole correct. According to Herodotus (ii, 85) there were three methods of embalming in use in his time. first or most expensive way, the brains and viscerae were removed from the body, which was carefully washed with palm wine, and then sprinkled with powdered spices. The cavities in the head and body were next filled with pounded myrrh, cassia, etc., and the opening in the abdomen through which the viscerae were taken out was sewed up. A tank containing a solution of salt, or soda, was prepared, and the body was steeped in it for seventy days. At the end of this period it was taken out of the solution, dried, and anointed with sweet-smelling unguents; then the swathing with linen strips was begun. Sometimes, in the case of women, the cheeks and lips were painted, the eye-lids smeared with eye-paint, and other attempts made to give to the face the semblance of life before swathing. The fingers and toes were each swathed separately, then the legs and arms, and finally, when pads and wads of linen had been fixed in various places to keep the swathings in position, and to give to the mummy the traditional form of the mummy of Osiris, the body and head were wrapped up in large sheets of linen, which were held in place by stout bands. As each swathing was placed on the body, a priest who was specially appointed said the formula which applied to it, and in cases where a large number of amulets were used, these objects, which were

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