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Apts when on earth. Her amethyst necklace and other ornaments are small, but very beautiful. Just over her feet is a blue-glazed steatite ushabti figure.

While we have been examining Tutu's funerary furniture, the servants of the Kher-heb have brought down the coffin, which is placed on a bier along the east wall, and the chairs and couch and boxes and funerary offerings, and arranged them about the chamber. In a square niche in the wall, just over the head of the coffin, Ani's writing palette and reeds are placed, and by their side is laid a large roll of papyrus nearly 90 feet long, inscribed in hieroglyphs during his lifetime and under his direction with the oldest and most important Chapters of the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead; the Vignettes, which refer to the Chapters, are beautifully painted, and in some as many as thirteen colours are used; and in every work connected with Ani's tomb there is a simple majesty that was characteristic of the ancient Egyptian gentleman. At each of the four corners or sides of the bier is placed one of the so-called Canopic jars, and at the foot are laid a few stone ushabtiu figures, whose duty it was to perform for the deceased such labours as filling the furrows with water, ploughing the fields and carrying the sand, if he were called upon to do these. When everything has been brought into this chamber, and the tables of offerings have been arranged, a priest, wearing a panther skin and accompanied by another who burns incense in a bronze censer, approaches the mummy and performs the ceremony of " opening the mouth,'

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un re, while a priest in white robes reads from a roll of papyrus or leather. The act of embalming has taken away from the dead man all control over his limbs and the various portions of his body, and before these can be of any use to him in the Other World a mouth must be given to him, and it must be opened so that his ka may be able to speak. The XXIst and XXIInd Chapters of the Book of the Dead refer to the giving of a mouth to the deceased, and the Vignette of the XXIInd Chapter represents a priest, called the "guardian of the scale," guardian of the scale,"

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ari makhet, giving the deceased his mouth. In the Vignette to the XXIIIrd Chapter a priest is seen performing the operation of opening the mouth, arit upt re, with the instrument, and the deceased says in the text, "Ptaḥ1 has opened my mouth with that instrument of iron with which he opened the mouth of the gods."2 Whilst these sacred ceremonies are being performed 1 Some copies read Shu.

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the crowd of friends at the door of the tomb is being entertained by singers and dancers and acrobats. When the mouth of the deceased had been opened, his ka gained control of his speech, intelligence and limbs, and was able to hold intercourse with the gods, and to go in and out of his tomb whenever he pleased. When the formulae are finished and all rites performed, Ani's near relatives and friends withdraw from the mummy chamber and make their way up the stairs, through the long passage and into the first chamber, where they find that animals have been slaughtered, and that many of the assistants and those who accompanied the funeral are eating and drinking of the funerary offerings. When the last person has left the mummy chamber, masons bring along slabs of stone and lime which they have ready and wall it up; the joints between the stones are so fine that the blade of a modern penknife can with difficulty be inserted to the depth of half an inch. We have seen Ani's body embalmed, we have watched all the stages of the manufacture of his coffin, we have seen the body dressed and laid in it, we have accompanied him to the tomb, we have gone through it and seen how it is arranged and decorated, and we have assisted at the funeral ceremonies; in his beautiful tomb, then, let us leave him. to enjoy his long rest in the company of his wife. Ani did not cause such a large and beautiful tomb to be hewn for him merely to gratify his pride; with him, as with all educated Egyptians, it was the outcome of the belief that his soul would revivify his body, and was the result of a firm assurance in his mind of the truth of the doctrine of immortality, which is the foundation of the Egyptian religion, and which was as deeply rooted in them as the hills are in the earth.

THE CEREMONY OF THE FOUR BLAZING FLAMES

We obtain our knowledge of this ceremony from the Papyrus of Nebseni and the Papyrus of Nu, both of which were written under the reigns of the early kings of the XVIIIth dynasty. As its object was to bring the vital heat of Ra into the body of the deceased in the mummy-chamber and to make him live and move about in all the mansions of Osiris at pleasure, it is probably of Heliopolitan origin, though the Rubric says the Chapter was found at Hermopolis. The Papyrus of Nebseni gives only a very short section of the text which was recited during the performance of the ceremony, and omits all the supplementary Chapters and Rubrics which are supplied by the Papyrus of Nu only. The ceremony was performed in the mummy-chamber with great secrecy. No one was to be present except the father or son of him who performed it, and such assistants as were absolutely necessary to carry it out. The objects required were four earthenware bowls or dishes, which were brought into the

mummy-chamber and sprinkled with incense; when this was done the bowls were filled with the milk of a white cow, which was to be used in quenching the flames when the recital of the text was

finished. The substance to be burnt was ațma cloth, ↓↓↓T,

which was smeared with Libyan unguent,

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As soon as the flames were kindled in the four bowls each bowl was given into the hands of a man who had the name of one of the Four Sons of Horus inscribed on his upper arm. These four men represented the four gods who sat upon the four pillars which supported Horus, both as god and as sky, and were called Mesta or Amset, Ḥāpi, Tuamutef and Qebḥsenuf. Judging by the Vignette to Chapter CLI of the Book of the Dead in the Papyrus of Muthetep, each man took his place in one corner of the chamber, which was called "Ţuat,” and was a type of the underworld, and kept the flame from the oiled cloth burning whilst the text, now known as Chapter CXXXVIIA, was recited. This text may be summarized thus:

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Fire comes to thy ka, O Osiris Khenti Amenti,
Fire comes to thy ka, O Osiris Nu the steward.
Fire comes to thy ka, O Osiris.

The Two Sisters of Rā (Isis and Nephthys) come likewise.
The Fire rises in Abṭu (Abydos), it comes to the Eye of Horus.
The Eye of Horus is on thy brow, O Osiris, and protects thee,
The Eye of Horus is on thy brow, O Nu, and protects thee.
Thine enemies have fallen, O Osiris,

Thine enemies have fallen, O Osiris Nu.

These four flames enter into thy ka, O Osiris,

These four flames enter into thy ka, O Osiris Nu.

Hail, Sons of Horus, ye protected Osiris, your Divine Father,
Protect ye now the Osiris Nu.

Ye destroyed the enemies of Osiris, who lives with the gods ;
He smote Suti (or Set) and light dawned on the earth.
Horus avenged his father Osiris, and joined him to his ka.
Destroy ye the enemies of the Osiris Nu.

Make him to live with the gods, and destroy his Enemy,

And make him to join himself to his ka.

The Eye of Horus has avenged thee, O Osiris Nu.

O Osiris Khenti Åmenti, grant light and fire to the soul that
dwells in Hensu (Herakleopolis).

O Sons of Horus, give ye power to the living soul of the Osiris
Nu within his flame.1

1 The soul in Ḥensu and the soul of the deceased are represented in the Vignette to Chapter CLI in the Papyrus of Mut-hetep.

The recital of these words was believed to effect the union of Nu and his ka with Osiris and his ka, and this being done, all the spirits and gods in the underworld would identify him with Osiris and pay to him honour as to the god. Another effect of the recital of this Chapter was to bring the spirits of Isis and Nephthys into the Țuat Chamber to guard the mummy of the deceased, the former kneeling at his feet and the latter by his head. But other precautions had to be taken to safeguard the mummy, for bodiless spirits of evil might force their way through the walls of the chamber and attack it and destroy it. To prevent this a powerful amulet was placed in each of the four walls, and a set of these amulets preserved in the British Museum shows us exactly what they were like. The Rubric to Chapter CXXXVIIA in the Papyrus of Nu directs how each is to be made and where it is to be placed, and thus our knowledge of these amulets and their use is tolerably complete. The amulets are four in number :

Tet

(1) A blue-glazed faïence (tchehen-t) Ṭeṭ 24 inches high, set in a rectangular brick of Nile mud, measuring 4 inches by 4 inches, and inscribed with four lines of hieratic text (B.M. 41547). This, with the face of the Tet turned towards the east, was to be placed in a cavity in the west wall, and the cavity was to be walled up with earth mixed with cedar juice. It repulsed all enemies coming from the east.

(2) A mud figure of Anubis couchant on his pedestal,, set upon a nearly rectangular brick of Nile mud measuring 6 inches by 4 inches, and inscribed with four lines of hieratic text (B.M. 41545). The Rubric orders that the mud of which Anubis is made shall be mixed with incense. This brick, with the face of Anubis turned towards the west wall, was to be placed in a cavity in the east wall, and the cavity was to be walled up. It repulsed all enemies coming from the south (west ?).

(3) A piece of a reed, 7 inches in length, set up in a brick of Nile mud measuring 6 inches by 4 inches, inscribed with five lines of hieratic text (B.M. 41544). The Rubric directs that the reed unām, shall be smeared with bitumen, or pitch, and

set light to, and that the brick shall then be placed in a cavity in the south wall, with the front of it facing the north. The cavity was then walled up, and this amulet repulsed all enemies coming from the north.

(4) A wooden figure of a woman wearing a heavy wig, and having her hands clenched and lying on her breasts, set in a brick of Nile mud measuring 6 inches by 4 inches, inscribed with five lines of hieratic text (B.M. 41546). The Rubric directs that the figure is to be seven finger [breadths] in height, and that it is to be made of

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On this figure the ceremony of

opening the mouth was to be performed, and then it was to be placed in a cavity in the north wall, with the face of the figure towards the south. The cavity was then walled up, and this figure repulsed all enemies coming from the south. This ceremony was to be performed by a man who was washed clean, and was ceremonially pure, and who had neither eaten meat or fish, or had intercourse with women [recently].

The hieratic texts on the four bricks may be transcribed thus :—

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I repulse thy steps

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(?), “O thou who comest quickly,

I repulse behind the Tet of Ra on the

day of fighting against slaughter. I am protecting the Osiris Ḥentmeḥit, the truth-speaker."

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"Keep watch, Osiris Ḥent-meḥit. He who

is on his Hill (i.e., Anubis) watches thy moment. Assuredly I have overthrown the Ațu Crocodile fiend. I am protecting the Osiris Hent-meḥit."

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thee from slaughter-blocking the way of the hidden one. I repulse them setting flame in the regions of the dead. I obstruct their ways. I am protecting the Osiris Hent-meḥit."

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"I defend

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