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Jews were obliged to manufacture them. They procured the bodies of all the criminals that were executed in gaols, and of people who had died in hospitals, Christians and others. They filled the bodies with bitumen and stuffed the limbs with the same substance; this done, they bound them up tightly and exposed them to the heat of the sun. By this means they made them look like old mummies. In the year 1564 a physician called Guy de la Fontaine made an attempt to see the stock of the mummies of the chief merchant in mummies at Alexandria, and he discovered that they were made from the bodies of slaves and others who had died of the most loathsome diseases. The traffic in mummies as a drug was stopped in a curious manner. A Jew at Damietta who traded in mummies had a Christian slave who was treated with great harshness by him because he would not consent to become a Jew. Finally, when the ill-treatment became so severe that he could bear it no longer, the slave went to the Pasha and informed him what his master's business was. The Jew was speedily thrown into prison, and only obtained his End of the liberty by payment of three hundred pieces of gold. Every mummy. Jewish trader in mummy was seized by the local governor of the place where he lived, and money was extorted from him. The trade in mummy being hampered by this arbitrary tax, soon languished, and finally died out entirely.'

The hieroglyphic word for mummy is |_

trade in

MEgyptian

Sahu, and the word used to indicate the act of making a dead
man into a mummy is or Δ
qes; it means to
"wrap up in bandages." The Coptic forms of the latter word
are KЄC, KHC, Kwc, kwwc, kwwce, and they were used by
the Copts to translate the Greek ἐνταφιασμὸς, ταφὴ, ἐνταφιάζειν,
Oάπτew, etc.; the word wrt, "mummy," is also given by
Kircher, Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta, Rome, 1643, p. 183, at
the foot. The mummifier was called peчkwc; compare
0002 εγκωρ & πιραλ ήχε πιρεςκὼς = καὶ ἐνετα-
φίασαν οἱ ἐνταφιασταὶ τὸν Ἰσραήλ.

1 Pettigrew on Mummies, p. 4.

2 Lagarde, Der Pentateuch Koptisch, Gen. 1. 2.

3 Lagarde, Librorum Vet. Test. Canon., Gen. 1. 2, p. 51.

name of

the em

balmed

body.

Antiquity balming.

of em

Ancient

Egyptian work on

anatomy.

Whether the art of mummifying was known to the aboriginal inhabitants of Egypt, or whether it was introduced by the new-comers from Asia, is a question which is very difficult to decide. We know for a certainty that the stele of a dignitary preserved at Oxford was made during the reign of Sent, the fifth king of the second dynasty, about B.C. 4000. The existence of this stele with its figures and inscriptions entreating the god of the dead to grant sepulchral meals, points to the fact that the art of elaborate sepulture had reached a high pitch of perfection in those early times. The man for whom it was made was called Sherȧ, and he held the dignity of neter hen or "prophet"; the stele also tells us that he was suten rech or "royal relative." The inscriptions contain prayers asking that there may be granted to the deceased in the nether world, "thousands of oxen, linen bandages, cakes, vessels of wine, incense, etc.," which fact shows that religious belief, funereal ceremonies, and a hope for a life after death, had already become a part of the life of the people of Egypt. During the reign of king Sent, the redaction of a medical papyrus was carried out. As this work presupposes many years of experiment and experience, it is clear that the Egyptians possessed at a remote period ample anatomical knowledge for mummifying a human body. Again, if we consider that the existence of this king is proved by papyri and contemporaneous monuments, and that we know the names of some of the priests who took part in funereal ceremonies during his reign, there is no difficulty in acknowledging the great antiquity of such ceremonies, and also that they presuppose a religious belief in the actual revivification of the body because of which hoped-for event the Egyptians took the greatest possible care to preserve and afterwards to hide the bodies of the dead.

Though there exists, to my knowledge, no monument of a similar nature to that of the stele of Sent which would prove beyond doubt that mummies were made in the first dynasty, still it seems tolerably certain that they were made, and there is little doubt that the Egyptians possessed all the anatomical knowledge necessary for this purpose. We know from Manetho that Tetȧ, the second king of the first dynasty,

abcut B.C. 4366, wrote a book upon anatomy, and that he busied himself in making experiments with drugs. The mother of this king, a lady called Shesh earned fame

for herself by inventing a hair wash. From the fact that the bodies of some ancient Egyptians who lived during the first four dynasties, have been found in a skeleton state in sarcophagi which had never been opened since the time they were cemented, some six thousand years ago, until the present day, it has been argued by some that mummification was not practised during the early dynasties in Egypt. Some system of preservation must have been adopted, however, because the bones are discoloured, and smell strongly of bitumen.

by Hero

The knowledge of the way in which the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead is obtained from the works of Greek historians, and from an examination of mummies. According to Herodotus, "When in a family a man of any consideration Account of dies, all the females of that family besmear their heads and embalming faces with mud, and then leaving the body in the house, they dotus. wander about the city, and beat themselves, having their clothes girt up, and exposing their breasts, and all their relations accompany them. On the other hand, the men beat themselves, being girt up in like manner. When they have done this, they carry out the body to be embalmed. There are persons who are appointed for this very purpose; they, when the dead body is brought to them, show to the bearers wooden models of corpses made exactly like by painting. And they show that which they say is the most expensive manner of embalming, the name of which I do not think it right to mention on such an occasion; they then show the second, Three which is inferior and less expensive; and then the third which of em is the cheapest. Having explained them all, they learn from balming. them in what way they wish the body to be prepared; then the relations, when they have agreed on the price, depart; but the embalmers remaining in the workshops thus proceed to embalm in the most expensive manner. First they draw out First the brains through the nostrils with an iron hook, taking part of method

3

1 Papyrus Ebers, Bd. II., Glossarium Hieroglyphicum, by Stern, p. 47. 2 Bk. II. 85.

8i.e., Osiris..

B. M.

N

methods

of embalming.

Second method of embalming.

it out in this manner, the rest by the infusion of drugs. Then with a sharp Ethiopian stone they make an incision in the side, and take out all the bowels; and having cleansed the abdomen and rinsed it with palm-wine, they next sprinkle it with pounded perfumes. Then having filled the belly with pure myrrh pounded, and cassia, and other perfumes, frankincense excepted, they sew it up again; and when they have done this, they steep it in natrum, leaving it under for 70 days; for a longer time than this it is not lawful to steep it, At the expiration of the 70 days they wash the corpse, and wrap the whole body in bandages of flaxen cloth, smearing it with gum, which the Egyptians commonly use instead of glue. After this the relations, having taken the body back again, make a wooden case in the shape of a man,1 and having made it, they enclose the body; and thus, having fastened it up, they store it in a sepulchral chainber, setting it upright against the wall. In this manner they prepare the bodies that are embalmed in the most expensive way.

2

"Those who, avoiding great expense, desire the middle way, they prepare in the following manner. When they have

Really in the form of the god Osiris.

• Compare ταριχεύει δὲ ὁ Αἰγύπτιος· οὗτος μέν γε-λέγω δ' ἰδών—ξηράνας τὸν vekpòv žúvdelπvov kai žvμñótyv izoιýøato. Lucian, De Luctu, § 21 (ed. Dindorf, Paris, 1867, p. 569).

Αἰγύπτιοι δὲ τὰ ἔντερα ἐξελόντες ταριχεύουσιν αὐτούς, καὶ σὺν ἑαυτοῖς ὑπὲρ yns Exovor. Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoniarum Institutionum lib. III. cap. 24 (ed. J. A. Fabricius, Leipzig, 1718, p. 184).

Mortuos limo obliti plangunt: nec cremare aut fodere fas putant: verum arte medicatos intra penetralia collocant. Pomponius Mela, lib. I. cap. 9 (ed. Gronov., Leyden, 1;82, p. 62).

Aegyptia tellus

Claudit odorato post funus stantia saxo

Corpora, et a mensis exsanguem haud separat umbram.

Silius Italicus, Punicorum lib. XIII. II. 474-476 (ed. H. Occioni, Turin, 1889).

Balsama succo unguentaque mira feruntur

Tempus in aeternum sacrum servantia corpus.

Corippi, De laudibus Justini, lib. III. 11. 22-25 (ed. Antwerp, 1581, p. 4).

charged their syringes with oil made from cedar, they fill the abdomen of the corpse without making any incision or taking out the bowels, but inject it at the fundament; and having prevented the injection from escaping, they steep the body in natrum for the prescribed number of days, and on the last day they let out from the abdomen the oil of cedar which they had before injected, and it has such power that it brings away the intestines and vitals in a state of dissolution; the natrum dissolves the flesh, and nothing of the body remains but the skin and the bones. When they have done this they return the body without any further operation.

of em

"The third method of embalming is this, which is used Third only for the poorer sort. Having thoroughly rinsed the method abdomen in syrmæa, they steep it with natrum for 70 days, balming. and then deliver it to be carried away."1

According to Genesis 1. 3, the embalming of Jacob occupied 40 days, but the period of mourning was 70 days. From Egyptian documents it is known that the length of the period from the death of a man to his burial varied; in one case the embalming occupied 16 days, the bandaging 35 Period of days, and the burial 70 days, ie., 121 days in all. In a balmment second case the embalming occupied 66 days, preparations varied in for burial 4 days, and the burial 26 days; in all 96 days. Elsewhere we are told that the embalming lasts 70 or 80 days, and the burial ten months.

em

length.

by Dio

The account given by Diodorus (I. 91) agrees with that Account of of Herodotus in many particulars, but some additional details embalming are given. According to it, if any man died, all his relatives dorus. and friends threw dust or mud on their heads, and went round about through the town uttering cries of grief as long as the body remained unburied; during the interval between the death and the burial, they abstained from the use of baths and wine, they partook of no choice foods, and they put not on fine apparel. The methods of embalming were three in number; the most expensive, the less expensive, and the poorest of all. The first method cost one talent of silver, about

1 Cary's translation, pp. 126, 127.

2 For the authorities see Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites Buch, p. 358.

Cost of embalming a body.

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