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tian burial.

piece of linen, and with his staff to support his steps,' and his sandals to protect his weary feet in the nether-world, he was laid in a hole or cave, or even in the sand of the open desert, to set out on his last journey. Trusting in the might of a few amulets that were buried with him, he feared not to meet his foes in the grave.

The funeral of a king or a member of the royal family, or of a wealthy person, was a very magnificent ceremony, and it is, perhaps, impossible to realize exactly what an imposing sight it must have been. Treating of the burial of a king in Diodorus Egypt, Diodorus says (I. 72), that when a king died all the on Egyp, inhabitants of the country wept and rent their garments; the temples were closed, and the people abstained from sacrifices and celebrated no festival for a period of seventy-two days. Crowds of men and women, about two or three hundred in number, went round about the streets with mud on their heads, and with their garments knotted like girdles below the breasts (σινδόνας ὑποκάτω τῶν μαστών), singing dirges twice daily in praise of the dead. They denied themselves wheat, they ate no animal food, and they abstained from wine and dainty fare. No one dared to make use of baths, or unguents, or to recline upon couches, or even to partake of the pleasures of love. The seventy-two days were passed in grief and mourning as for the death of a beloved child. Meanwhile, the funeral paraphernalia was made ready, and on the last day of mourning, the body, placed in a coffin, was laid at the entrance to the tomb, and according to law, judgment was passed upon the acts of the king during his life. Every one had the power to make an accusation against the king. The priests pronounced a funeral oration over the body, and declared the noble works of the king during his life, and if the opinion of the assembled multitude agreed with that of the priests, and the king had led a blameless life, they testified their approval openly; if, on the other hand, the life of the king had been a bad one, they expressed their disapprobation by loud murmurs. Through the opposition of the people many kings have been deprived of meet and proper burial,

Compare Psalm xxiii. 4.

and kings are accustomed to exercise justice, not only Diodorus because they fear the disapprobation of their subjects, but tian burial. on Egypalso because they fear that after death their bodies may be maltreated, and their memory cursed for ever.

It is very doubtful if the above description of the mourning is not somewhat exaggerated, and there appears to be no authority in Egyptian inscriptions for the statement that many kings were deprived of their meet and proper burial because of the disapproval of their past lives shown by the people. This account by Diodorus is more valuable for the indication of the great and solemn respect which was shown to dead kings, as sons of the god Rā, and as lords of the land of Egypt, than for its strict accuracy of detail. The customs observed at the burial of kings would be respectfully imitated at the funerals of the nobles and officials of his court, and the account by the same writer of what happened after the mummy of an Egyptian gentleman was prepared for burial, must next be considered.

According to Diodorus (I. 92), when the body is ready to be buried, the relatives give notice to the judges and the friends of the deceased, and inform them that the funeral will take place on a certain day, and that the body will pass over the lake; and straightway the judges, forty in number,1 come and scat themselves in a semi-circle above the lake. Then the men who have been commissioned to prepare a boat called Bâpis, bring it to the lake, and they set it afloat under the charge of a pilot called Charon. And they pretend that Orpheus travelling in Egypt in ancient times, was present at a ceremony of this kind, and that he drew his fable of the infernal regions partly from his remembrance of this

1 Is it possible that Diodorus has confused the forty judges at the lake with the forty-two judges or assessors of the Book of the Dead, before each of whom the deceased was supposed to declare that he had not committed a certain sin ?

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3 Wiedemann compares the Egyptian kare, "Schiffer." The dictionaries give

qare, a "ship," and

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qăre, "coach

39 66

man,'

cart-driver."

Diodorus ceremony,' and partly from his imagination. Before the coffin tian burial, containing the dead man was placed in the boat on the lake, every person had the right to bring accusations against the deceased. If any accuser succeeded in showing that the deceased had led a bad life, the judges made a decree which deprived the body of legal burial; if, on the other hand, the accusation was found to be unjust, the person who brought it was compelled to pay heavy damages. If no one stood forth to bring an accusation, or if an accusation seemed calumnious, the relatives of the deceased ceased to mourn and began to praise the dead man and his virtues, and to entreat the gods of the infernal regions to admit him into the place reserved for good men. The Egyptians never praised the birth of a man, as did the Greeks, for they believed that all men are equally noble. The people being gathered together, add their cries of joy, and utter wishes that the deceased may enjoy everlasting life in the underworld in the company of the blessed. Those who have private burial places lay the bodies of their dead in the places set apart for them; but those who have not, build a new chamber in their house, and set the body in it fixed upright against the wall. Those who are deprived of burial, either because they lie under the ban of an accusation, or because they have not paid their debts, are merely laid in their own houses. It happens sometimes that the younger members of a family, having become richer, pay the debts of their ancestors, secure the removal of the condemnatory sentence upon them, and give them most sumptuous funerals. The great honours which are paid to the dead by the Egyptians form the most solemn ceremonies. As a guarantee for a debt, it is a customary thing to deposit the bodies of dead parents, and the greatest disgrace and privation from burial, wait upon those who redeem not such sacred pledges.

In this account also there are many details given for which proof is still wanting from the Egyptian monuments.

1 Thus Orpheus brought back from his travels in Egypt the ceremonies, and the greater part of the mystic rites celebrated in memory of the courses of Ceres, and the whole of the myth of hell. The difference between the feasts of Bacchus and of those of Osiris exists only in name, and the same may be said of the mysteries of Isis and those of Osiris. Diodorus, I. 96.

embalmment

to the

monu

An attempt may now be made to describe briefly what Egyptian happened after death to the body of a man of high rank who departed this life at Thebes towards the end of the XVIIIth according or beginning of the XIXth dynasty, that is to say about B.C. 1400. The facts are all known, and therefore nothing need ments. be invented; it is only necessary to gather them together and to bring them to a focus on the person of one man. We must imagine then that we are living on the east bank of the Nile, near the temple of Amen-Rā, "lord of the thrones of the earth," in the fifteenth century before Christ. One morning before the day has dawned, even before the officials who conduct the early services in the temples are astir, we are awakened by loud cries of grief and lamentation, and on making inquiries we are told that Ani, the great scribe of the offerings of the gods in the temple of Amen-Rā, is dead. As he was the receiver of the revenues of the gods of Abydos, as well as of Amen-Ra of Thebes, first prophet of Amen, and the precentor who stood on the threshold of the temple morning by morning to lead off the hymn of praise to the sun, his death naturally causes great excitement in the temples and the immediate neighbourhood; as his forefathers for five or six generations have been temple officers of the highest rank, it is certain that his funeral will be a great event, and that numbers of the hereditary aristocracy and government officials will assist at the ceremony. He leaves no wife to mourn for him, for she is already dead, and is now lying in a chamber of a splendid tomb, not yet finished, however, nine miles away across the river, awaiting the coming of her husband. She was called Tutu, and belonged to one of the oldest and most honourable families in Thebes; she was a member of the famous college of singers of Amen-Rā, and also a member of the choir of ladies, each one of whom carried a sistrum or a tambourine in the temple of that god. Ani began to hew out the tomb for himself and his wife many Tomb years ago, and during his lifetime he spared neither pains nor expense in making it one of the largest and finest ever known for a person of lower rank than a king. Ani was not very old man when he died, although his step was slow and his back somewhat bent; in stature he was of middle height, and

of Ani.

Death

of Ani.

his features had a kind but dignified look, and though comparatively few loved him, all respected him for his uprightness and integrity. He was a learned man, and knew the literature of Egypt well; he himself wrote a fine, bold hand, and was no mean artist with his pencil. He was a tried servant of the king, and loved him well, but he loved his god Amen more, and was very jealous for his honour, and the glory of his worship in the temple of the Apts. All his ancestors had been in the service of the god, and it was even said that the oldest of them had seen Amen, who, until the expulsion of the Hyksos by the kings of Thebes, had occupied the position of a mere local deity, suddenly become the national god of Egypt. Whether Ani believed in his innermost heart any or all of the official religion is another matter; his official position brought him into contact with the temporal rather than the spiritual affairs of the Egyptian religion, and whatever doubts he may have had in matters of belief, or concerning the efficacy of the magic of his day, etc., etc., he said nothing about them to any man.

For some days past it had been seen that Ani's death was to be expected, and many of his colleagues in the temple had come to see him from time to time, one bringing a charm, another a decoction of herbs, etc., and a few had taken it in turns to stay in his room for some hours at a time. One night his illness took a decidedly serious turn, and early in the morning, a short time before daybreak, when, as the Orientals say, the dawn may be smelled, Ani died. The news of his death spreads rapidly through the quarter, for all the women of his house rush frantically through the streets, beating their breasts, and from time to time clutching at their hair, which is covered with handfuls of the thick dust of the streets, after the manner of Ånpu in the Tale of the Two Brothers, and uttering wailing cries of grief. In the house, parties of mourning women shriek out their grief, and all the members of the house add their tears and sobs. The steward of the house has, however, sent across the river to the cher-heb or priest who superintends and arranges the funerals of the wealthy and great, and informed him of Ani's death, and as quickly as possible this official leaves his

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