To the right, or South side, is the

FIRST EGYPTIAN ROOM *

In this, and in part of the next room, are placed the aller antiquities of Egypt. Most of these have been disco

ered in tombs, and owe their remarkable preservation to the eculiar dryness of the climate of the country. They have een acquired mainly by purchases from the collections of I. Anastasi, Mr. Salt, Mr. Sams, and Mr. Lane, and by donaons from H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Northmberland, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, and other travellers in Egypt. The objects may be divided into three principal ections:

1. Those relating to the religion of the Egyptians, such s representations of divinities and sacred animals.

2. Those relating to their civil and domestic life. 3. Those relating to their death and burial.

I. RELIGIOUS SECTION.

The Egyptian Pantheon, which was very complex, comprehended a large number of divinities, of which the most important were connected with the sun in his annual or diurnal course, and the lesser were his attendant satellites. The relative importance of the divinities depended in some measure on the power and wealth of the cities in which they were principally worshipped, each city having a distinct group, formed of the local god, his wife, and child, with occasionally a fourth divinity added. In the representations of the deities, their heads are generally exchanged for those of the animals sacred to them.

The figures in Cases 1-11 are arranged simply as illustrations of mythology, and without reference to their original purpose. Those which are of wood and stone were found generally in tombs and temples; those of bronze and silver were principally votive; whilst the small figures in gold, porcelain, and other materials, were worn as amulets, employed in private worship, or attached to the mummies of the dead. * The Egyptian objects in this and the adjoining room are in course of removal to two rooms in the North Gallery.

[Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms, 4d.]

The upper row in the Cases contains the larger figures, the next those in bronze, the third those in porcelain, and in the lowest are the larger figures in various materials. Among them may be noticed the following:

Cases 1, 2. Amenra (Jupiter), the principal deity of Thebes; Ra (The Sun), the god worshipped at Heliopolis, or On; Phtah (Vulcan), the divinity of Memphis; the goddess Sekhet or Bast (Bubastis); and Neith (Minerva), the goddess of Sais, whence her worship is supposed to have been carried to Athens. Cases 3-5. Thoth (Mercury), the god of knowledge, and the reputed inventor of writing; the goddess Sothis, or the Dog Star; Osiris, the judge of the dead, his wife Isis, and their son Horus, three divinities who were worshipped throughout Egypt. Case 7. Anubis, the god of Embalming, and Bes, or Typhon, the impersonation of the principle of Evil.

Cases 8-11. Representations of animals sacred to the various divinities, and which were also themselves worshipped, though the reverence paid to some of them varied considerably in different parts of the country. În Cases 8, 9, are quadrupeds, such as the Bull Apis, the jackal of Anubis, the cat of Sekhet or Bast, the cynocephalus, the lion, the goat, &c. In Cases 10, 11, birds, fishes, and reptiles, such as the hawk of Horus, the ibis of Thoth, fishes of various kinds, the crocodiles of Sebak, and the cobra di capello snake, or uræus. There are also sacred emblems, such as those of Life, Stability, &c.

II. CIVIL SECTION.

The remains of Egyptian dress, personal ornaments, and articles of domestic use, show the high civilization and even luxury to which the people had attained.

In Cases 12, 13, are figures of kings and public functionaries, in bronze, ivory, or wood, principally found in tombs. The most remarkable are some finely carved figures of females, and a fine statuette in bronze, inlaid with silver, representing a king.

Cases 14-19 contain household furniture, consisting of wooden headrests, which served as pillows; chairs with plaited cord bottoms; stools, and folding seats; some of them formed of ebony inlaid with ivory. With these is a model of a peasant's house, with granaries, in the court of which is seen a woman making bread; the wig of an Egyptian lady of rank, and the box for holding it; a three-legged table, and other objects of a similar nature. Figures of deities.

Cases 20, 21. Articles of dress and appliances for the toilet. Shelf 1. A leather dress, a linen shirt, and a box to hold clothes. Shelf 2. Combs, hair-pins, ointment-vases, and apparatus for painting the eyes with Stibium. Shelves 3, 4. Bronze mirrors, and a collection of shoes and sandals.

Cases 22-32. Vases of various kinds. In Cases 22, 23. Vases made of oriental alabaster (arragonite), some of them inscribed with the names of very early kings, such as Unas of the 5th dynasty, and Nephercheres. There is also a vase, on which is engraved an inscription stating its capacity. Cases 24, 25. Shelf 1. Vessels in alabaster and serpentine. Shelves 2 and 3. Glazed steatite, and porcelain vases: some fragments with the names of kings. Shelf 4. Earthenware of various kinds. Cases 26-29. Earthenware vases, some of them with polychrome painting. Cases 30-32. Vases in red terracotta; one of them in the form of a woman playing on a guitar.

Cases 33-35. On the two upper shelves, bronze vases of various kinds, the most remarkable being buckets, covered with hieroglyphics, probably for offering water in the temples; and the model of a stand with a set of bronze vases upon it: also two fragments of bronze inscribed with the name of Tirhakah, king of Egypt. Shelf 3. Articles of food, such as fruit and grain. On a stand are two trussed ducks and some bread. Shelf 4. Agricultural implements, such as a hoe and sickle, of iron, and the wooden steps of a ladder.

Cases 36, 37. Armour and weapons for war, and implements for the chase. Among them are several highly ornamented bronze axes; with daggers, one with flint blade, spear-heads, and arrows tipped with flint, and a pulley.

ments.

Case 39. Artistic and writing implements, such as the palette for holding colour, and ink-pots, and moulds for making terracotta ornaSome razors and other instruments for dressing the hair. Cases 40-45. Various objects of domestic use. Cases 40, 41. Shelves 2 and 3. Boxes, and spoons; some of the former made of ebony and ivory, and the latter much carved and ornamented. In Cases 42, 43, on Shelves 1 and 4, are baskets. Shelf 2. Tools chiefly made of bronze, and models of similar instruments, several of them inscribed with the name of Thothmes III., a king of the 18th dynasty. Shelf 3. Carvings in bone, ivory, and wood. Cases 44, 45. On Shelf 1, baskets made of palm-leaves. Shelf 2. Musical instruments, including harps, flutes, cymbals, and sistra; games and playthings, such as draughtboard, draughtsmen, dice, dolls, and balls. Shelves 3, 4. Linen cloths of various colours.

III. SEPULCHRAL SECTION.

The preparations for embalming the dead, and ceremonies at funerals, were looked upon as matters of great importance by the Egyptians, and large sums of money were spent upon the sepulchral rites. There were several modes of preparing the mummies, varying not only at different periods, but also with the rank and wealth of the person to be interred. The more costly process was as follows:-The brain having been. extracted, and the viscera removed through an opening cut in

the left side with a stone, the body was, in earlier times, prepared with salt and wax, in later times, steeped or boiled in bitumen; then wrapped round with bands of linen, sometimes 700 yards in length; various amulets being placed in different parts, and the whole covered with a linen shroud and sometimes decorated with a network of porcelain bugles. It was then enclosed in a thin case formed of canvas, thickened with a coating of stucco, on which were painted figures of divinities and emblems of various kinds, as well as the name and titles of the deceased, and portions of the Ritual of the Dead. The whole was then enclosed in a wooden coffin, and sometimes deposited in a stone sarcophagus.

Cases 46-51. Various mummies and coffins; the most remarkable being part of the mummy-shaped coffin of King Menkara, the Mycerinus of the Greeks, builder of the Third Pyramid. This is not only the oldest coffin in the collection, but one of the earliest inscribed monuments of Egypt. Near it is part of a body, supposed to be that of the king, found in the same pyramid. A small Græco-Egyptian mummy of a child from Thebes; on the external wrapper is painted a representation of the deceased.

The principal mummies and their coffins are placed in two rows in the central part of the room. The most important are the following:

Case 66. Mummy and coffin of Bakrans (Bocchoris), a female: about B.C. 720.

Case 67. Mummy and coffin of Katbti, a priestess of Amen-ra. Case 68. Coffin of Har, incense-bearer of the temple of Num-ra. Case 69. Very fine mummy of Harnetatf, high priest of Amoun; on the soles of the sandals are represented Asiatic captives. The outer case is in the corner of the room, in Case 27.

Case 70. Mummy of Haremhbai, richly painted, and the coffin of Enantef, a king anterior to the 12th dynasty.

Case 72. Coffin of Tenamen, an incense-bearer at Thebes. The face is of dark wood, inlaid with glass.

Case 74. Mummy of a Græco-Egyptian youth, whose portrait is placed on the head, painted on cedar.

Case 75. Mummy and coffin of a Græco-Egyptian girl, named Tphous, daughter of Heraclius Soter; on the coffin is a Greek inscription, recording her death in the 11th year of Hadrian, A.D. 127.

Case 103. Sarcophagus of Mentuhetp, a functionary of about the 11th dynasty.

Case 104. Sarcophagus of Amam, an officer under one of the older dynasties.

Two

Cases (A) 77, (B) 90, and (C) 105, in the centre of the room. large wooden coffins of the Roman period. One is that of Cleopatra,