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house near the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, and together with his assistants, makes his way with all haste to Ani's house. Having arrived there he takes Ani's body into Ani's body his charge, and proceeds to discuss the method by which the given to body shall be preserved, and the style of the funeral. While the emhis assistants are taking away the body to the embalming house, he sends quickly to the western bank of the Nile, and summons his chief mason to his presence; after a short time he arrives, and the cher-heb instructs him to go to Ani's tomb with a body of men, and to finish hewing whatever chambers and pillars remain in a half completed state, to plaster the walls, and to paint upon them scenes for which he supplies him with details and notes. The cher-heb knows that for many years past Ani, and one or two of his friends among the scribes, had been writing and illuminating with vignettes a fine copy of the "Book of the Dead"; he remembers that this work remains unfinished, and he therefore sets a skilful scribe to finish it in the style in which Ani would probably have finished it. Parties of professional mourners are next organized, and these go round about the city at stated times, singing in chorus, probably accompanied by some musical instrument, funereal dirges, the subjects of which were the shortness of life and the certainty that all must die, and the virtues of the dead man. These dirges were sung twice daily, and Dirges for Ani's friends and colleagues, during the days of mourning, thought it to be their duty to abstain from wine and every kind of luxury, and they wore the simplest and plainest garments, and went quite unadorned.

the dead.

Meanwhile it was decided that Ani's funeral should be one of the best that money could purchase, and as while he was alive he was thought to be in constant communion with the gods, his relatives ordered that his body should be mummified in the best possible way, so that his soul Aba, and his intelligencexu, when they returned some thousands of years hence to seek his body in the tomb, might find Object hiska ka or or "genius" there waiting, and that all three might balmment. enter into the body once more, and revivify it, and live with it for ever in the kingdom of Osiris. No opportunity must

of em

The em

balmment.

be given for these four component parts of the whole of a man to drift away one from the other, and to prevent this the perishable bodyxa must be preserved in such a way that each limb of it may meetly be identified with a god, and the whole of it with Osiris, the judge of the dead and king of the nether world. The tomb must be made a fit and proper dwelling-place for the ka, which will never leave it as long as the body to which it belongs lies in its tomb. The furniture of the tomb must be of the best, and every material, and the workmanship thereof, must also be of the best.

The cher-heb next goes to the embalming chamber and orders his assistants to begin their operations upon Ani's body, over which formulæ are being recited. The body is first washed and then laid upon the ground, and one of the assistants traces with ink on the left side, over the groin, a line, some few inches long, to indicate where the incision is to be made in the body; another assistant takes a knife, probably made of flint, and makes a cut in the body the same length as the line drawn in ink by his companion. Whether this man was then driven away with sticks, and stones thrown after him, as Diodorus states, or not, is a moot point upon which the inscriptions give us no information. The chief intestines and the heart and lungs were then carefully taken out and washed in palm wine, and stuffed with sweet smelling spices, gums, etc. They were next smeared all over with an unguent, and then carefully bandaged with strips of linen many yards long, on which were inscribed the names of the four children of Horus who symbolized the four cardinal points and of the four goddesses who took the intestines under their special protection. While this was being done a set of four alabaster jars was brought from the stores of the cher-heb's establishment, and in each of these one of the four packets of

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children of Horus, in the form of four figures made of metal, with the face of a man, with the face of an ape, with the face of a jackal, and with the face of a hawk."

embalmed intestines was placed. Each jar was inscribed with a forinula, and all that was wanted to make it the property of Ani was to inscribe his name upon it in the blank spaces left for the purpose. Each jar had a cover made in Jars for the form of the head of the child of Horus to whom it was intestines. dedicated. The jar of Mesthȧ had the head of a man, and in it was placed the stomach; it was under the protection of Isis. The jar of Hapi had the head of an ape, and in it were placed the smaller intestines; it was under the protection of Nephthys. The jar of Tuamautef had the head of a jackal, and in it was placed the heart; it was under the protection of Neith. The jar of Qebḥsennuf had the head of a hawk, and in it was placed the liver; it was under the protection of Serqet. The inscriptions on the jars state that the part of the deceased in it is identified with the child of Horus to whom the jar is dedicated, and that the goddess under whose charge it is protects it. The covers of the jars are fastened on by running in liquid plaster, and they are finally set in the four divisions of a coffer on a sledge with a vaulted cover and a projecting rectangular upright at each corner. It was of the greatest importance to have the intestines 1 preserved intact, for without them a man could not hope to live again. The brain is Removal next removed through the nostrils by means of an iron rod curved at one end, and is put aside to be dried and buried with the body; at every step in these processes religious formulæ are recited. The body thus deprived of its more perishable parts is taken and laid to soak in a tank of liquid natron for a period of seventy days. At the end of this time it is taken out and carefully washed and dried, and it is seen that it is of a greenish-grey colour; the skin clings to the The body bones, for the flesh beneath it has shrunk somewhat, but the steeped in hair of the body is well preserved, the nails of the hands and feet still adhere to the skin, and the face, though now drawn and very thin, has changed but little. Longitudinal slits are next made in the fingers and toes and the fleshy parts of the arms, thighs and legs, which are then stuffed with a mixture of sweet spices and natron, and sewn up again. The cavity in

1

1 In mummies of the best period the intestines are sometimes found in packets beneath the bandages.

B. M.

M

of brain.

natron.

The orna

ments of the body.

the skull is now filled up with a mixture of spices, powdered plaster and natron, and the nostrils through which it was inserted are plugged up with small linen pledgets dipped in some astringent; obsidian eyes are also inserted in the eyesockets. Large quantities of gums, spices, natron, as well as a very little bitumen, are pounded and well mixed together, and with them the breast and stomach are carefully packed through the slit in the side; while certain formulæ are being recited, a gold plate inscribed with the utchat, or eye of Horus, is laid upon it to indicate that this god watched over this body as he did over that of his father Osiris. The nails of the hands are stained with henna (Arab. ‘Li), and on the little finger of the left hand is placed Ani's gold ring, in the bezel of which is mounted a handsome steatite scarab inscribed on the base with his name and titles. The ring was supposed to confer upon the deceased some power, but what that power was is not yet exactly made out; it is certain, however, that no one was buried without one or more, and if the relatives of the deceased were not able to buy them in gold or silver, they made use of faïence rings, glazed various colours, and even of small strings of beads which they tied on the fingers in lieu of rings. The legs are then brought closely together, and the arms are laid on the body with one wrist crossed over the other. The cher-heb next provides a large and handsome scarab made of green basalt which is set in a frame of gold, over the back of it is a horizontal band of the same metal, at right angles to which, on the side of the tail of the beetle, runs another band which joins the frame; at the head of the scarab is a gold loop through which is now threaded a thick gold wire sufficiently long to go round Ani's neck. This scarab was part of the stock in trade of the cher-heb, and all that was necessary to do to make it Ani's property was to inscribe his name and titles upon it in the blank line left for the purpose at the head of the flat base. The scarab This done the scarab was covered with a thin gold leaf and The inscription upon it

laid over the heart.

laid

upon

Ani's breast at the neck.1

According to some rubrics of the thirtieth chapter the scarab was to be placed "within the heart" of a person after the ceremony of "opening the mouth"

was one of the verses of the 30th chapter of the Book of the Dead, and contained a prayer, addressed by Ani to his heart, that there might not be brought against him adverse evidence when it was weighed in the balance in the judgment hall of Osiris, that he might not be obstructed or driven back, and that his name might not be overthrown by those powers who made it their business to harass the newcomers among the dead in the nether-world. The prayer ends with a petition that no false evidence may be borne against him in the presence of the god.

And now the bandaging begins. The body is first of all Process of smeared all over with unguents. Pieces of linen are then bandaging. torn into strips about three inches wide, and one edge of each strip is gummed. On one end of each of these the name of Ani has been written in hieratic characters to facilitate the identification of the mummy during the process of bandaging; a number of these strips are dipped in water, and the embalmers having bandaged the fingers, hands, and arms, and toes separately, begin to bandage the body from the feet upwards. The moist bandages cling tightly to the body, and the gummed edge enables each fold of the bandage to obtain firm hold; the little irregularities are corrected by small pledgets of linen placed between the folds and gummed in position. These linen bandages are also held in position by means of narrower strips of linen wound round the body at intervals of six and eight inches, and tied in a double knot. Over these fine linen bandages passages from the Book of the Dead, and formula which were intended to give power to the dead, are written. One end of a very thick bandage of eighteen to twenty-five folds of linen is laid under the shoulders, and the other is brought over the head and face, and rests on the upper part of the chest; this is held in position by a bandage wound round the neck, and tied in a double knot at the back of the neck. The same plan is adopted with respect to the feet, but before the bandage

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(Naville, Bd. II, 99), had been performed; this rite, however, took place in the tomb.

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