for giving offerings to the Ka regularly and continually, millions of times, , was impressed on every Egyptian from his childhood, for if a man failed in this duty the Ka might be compelled by hunger and thirst to drink dirty water and eat filth. In the Book of the Dead (Chapters LII and CLXXXIX) the deceased himself says, "Make me not eat what I abominate; filth is an abomination to me. Let it not touch my body, let me not be obliged to handle it or to walk on it with my sandals. Let my bread be made of white grain, and my beer from red grain. Let me not be sprinkled with filthy water (i.e., urine).”

Under the XIth and XIIth dynasties Ka figures and statues were made of painted wood; typical examples of the XIth dynasty (or earlier) are B.M. 55583 and 55584. One of the finest examples known of the XIIth dynasty is that of king Auȧbrā Ḥer

이

which was found at Dahshûr by de Morgan. This figure had a model upon his head, and his head-dress, eyebrows and eyelids, beard-rest, neck-ornaments, nipples, and the nails of his hands and feet were covered with thin plates of gold. Round the waist was a thin girdle of gold, the ends of which reached halfway down his thighs. This figure stood in a wooden shrine nearly 7 feet in height, and the inscriptions were painted in green upon thin plates of gold set in plaster. Under the New Kingdom Ka statues, made of wood and painted black, were placed in royal tombs ; specimens of these are B.M. 854, the Ka statue of Seti I, B.M. 882, the Ka statue of Rameses II, and B.M. 883, the Ka statue of an unknown king. The Ka figures of private persons were made of gold, silver, bronze, wood, steatite, faïence and terra-cotta, and among the smaller examples B.M. 56842, 32743, 32732 and 32733 are worthy of note. The custom of placing a Ka figure in the tomb seems to have lasted until the Egyptians ceased to mummify their dead. The preservation of the body was necessary for the welfare and existence of the Ba,, or soul, and the provision of an abode and bread and beer was equally necessary for the life of the Ka. Unfortunately the ideas which the Neolithic Egyptians held about the Ka and its origin are unknown.2

21

1 De Morgan, Fouilles à Dahchour, Vienna, 1895, p. 91, and pls. XXXIII and XXXIV.

2 Some authorities hold the view that the figure or statue of the deceased in the tomb had nothing to do with the Ka.

461

MODELS OF OBJECTS USED AT THE OPENING OF THE MOUTH

A GOOD example of a set of such objects is B.M. 5526. Here in the face of a rectangular slab of limestone, with rounded back, are cut cavities to hold the PESH-EN-KEF instrument,

two stone knives, two bottles, and four vases for unguents. All the cavities save one, viz., that for a knife, contain the objects for which they were made. The Pesh-en-kef is 33 inches in length, the greyish green stone is 1 inches in length, the crystal and black stone bottles are 2 inches and 24 inches high respectively, and the four rock-crystal vases are each about 1 inches high, and only one of them is bored to a depth sufficient for use. The Pesh-en-kef was regarded as an object possessing magical powers even in Neolithic times, a fact which is proved by the example in flint (B.M. 37279). The two small stone knives (?) represent the “iron of the South" and the "iron of the North" respectively, or the two neterti instruments, 19. The white and black bottles are symbols of the purifying liquids of the South and North, and the four small crystal vases symbolize the four unguents.

A somewhat similar group of models in the British Museum (23222) is worthy of note; in this group also one of the knives (?) is wanting. The objects are laid in hollows in a board measuring 6 inches by 4 inches, and the coarseness and irregularity of the work suggest that they belong to a very early period. Another group of models of this class is found fitted into the pedestal of a statue preserved at Alnwick Castle. Dr. Birch's description of them is as follows: "Figure of a man walking, wearing long striated hair, rude and coarse features, wearing a tunic, shenti, his left foot advanced, both hands pendent and clenched. He stands on a pedestal in shape of an altar of libations, rectangular, with rectangular spout; on the pedestal are laid the following small models, two cylindroid jar-shaped vases, and a small one between two bottles like prochooi of dark stone, an object like an amulet of two ostrich feathers united of red material, and two other objects like knife-blades, the use and meaning of which are unknown. The figure is of veined alabaster (aragonite), and the pedestal, which is in the shape of a table of offerings, is of calcareous stone; height of figure 15 inches, length of pedestal 14 inches, breadth 8 inches, depth 4 inches. From Abydos." Dr. Birch assigned the group1 to the XIIth dynasty, but it undoubtedly belongs to the Old Kingdom. The object like "two ostrich feathers united" is, of course, the Pesh-en-kef, which has already been described.

1 Birch, Catalogue of the Collection of Egyptian Antiquities at Alnwick Castle, London, 1880, No. 505, p. 64.

عنقریہ

THE GRAIN BED OF OSIRIS

AMONG the objects of a miscellaneous character that are often seen heaped up in the outer rooms, or "offering chambers," of Theban tombs, excavators have frequently found a sort of "mattress," about 5 feet 4 inches long, and about 1 foot 10 inches in width, of much the same thickness as the thick padded quilt which is found in modern houses all over the East. This mattress" usually lies within a rough rectangular wooden framework, which in a way suggests the upper part of a Sûdânî or Egyptian 'ankarîb,' or bedstead. When it is opened it is seen to consist of layers of papyrus and linen, and a large quantity of dust and dried grain, and it is now known that the object was a copy of the socalled “bed of Osiris," and that it was placed in the tomb to assist the resurrection of the deceased. The bed was made by sowing grain, probably barley, in a layer of moist earth which was laid upon a foundation of linen and papyrus matting; the grain was sown in the form of a figure of Osiris wearing the White Crown and having his usual attributes. In the darkness of the tomb the grain sprouted quickly, and when the shoots were a few inches high, layers of linen were laid over them, and linen cords, four or five in number, in imitation of the outer bands of a mummy, were tied round the whole bed,1 which was left in the tomb. Now, Osiris had inherited the attributes of the old Grain-god Neper,

and had under the New Kingdom become the Grain-god of all Egypt, and not only the source of the harvest, but the harvest itself, and the food of his followers, living and dead. The barley which was placed in the tomb in the layer of earth symbolized the body of the deceased which, like the grain, contained a living germ. And the sprouting of the grain had the effect of making the dead body send forth from itself the germ of life that was in it in the form of the spirit body, which passed into the kingdom of Osiris, and lived henceforth with the gods and the spirits and souls of the blessed. The barley was the dead Osiris, and the sproutings from it were Osiris who, in the form of living plants, had risen from the dead.

The walls of the temple of Osiris at Denderah contain a long inscription which deals with the festivals of the god, and describes at great length the making of a figure of Osiris of grain paste. The

1 See Quibell, Tomb of Yuaa and Thuiu, p. 36; Daressy, Catalogue, No. 24661; Davis, Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou, p. 45; and Wiedemann, Museon, N.S. IV, 1903, pp. 111-123.

• Portions of the text have been published by Brugsch and Dümichen (Recueil, I, 15, 16), Mariette, Denderah, tom. IV, pll. 35-39, and a summary of the contents of the first 32 lines by Lauth, Aeg. Zeit., 1866, p. 66. The complete text; with a French translation, has been published by Loret, Recueil de Travaux, tom. III, IV and V.