grain was mixed with various substances and kneaded into a paste which was placed in a mould made in the form of a figure of the god. This mould was placed in the sanctuary, and on a certain day it was moistened with water, and a few days later the grain in the paste sprouted and sent forth shoots of young plants. The germination of the grain in the paste figure of Osiris in the mould was believed to produce the germination of all the grain sown in the fields in every part of Egypt, and also of the grain that was enclosed in the Osiris beds in the tombs. According to a text1 in the tomb of Neferhetep at Thebes, which has been translated by Gardiner,2 the grain in the Osiris bed was moistened ceremonially on the eighteenth day of the fourth month of the season of Shemu, (July-August), and the festival lasted until the twenty-fifth day, i.e., from the eve of the eighteenth to the morning of the twentyfifth-seven full days. This statement is followed by the ḥeka, or words of magical power, which had to be recited over the bed to make it fulfil its functions. The heka consisted of an address to the deceased, who is identified with Osiris and Horus and his four sons, and he is adjured to rise up on his left side, as did Osiris, for Geb will open his eyes, and make rigid his legs, and he is assured that his heart, which is his mother, shall be given its right place in his breast. But the festival in connection with the sprouting of the grain in the figure of Osiris in the mould and the Lamentation for Osiris was celebrated in the fourth month of the season Akhet (November-December) and at Denderah lasted from the twentysecond to the twenty-sixth day. In the other great sanctuaries of Egypt, e.g., Abydos, Memphis and Mendes, the festival was celebrated on days earlier in the month.

MODELS OF BOATS

THE primitive Egyptians believed that the abode of departed spirits was situated in a region which was remote from their country, and that the souls of the dead could travel thither both by land and by water. But the route by land was in one place or more interrupted by a river, which the dead had to cross, and the heaven that they hoped to reach was intersected by canals and streams. Therefore it was absolutely necessary to provide the dead with boats in the Other World. This was done by making models of boats and putting them in the tombs with the dead, so that when they arrived at the great river in the Tuat, or at the shore of the lake or sea in which the Island of the primitive god (and later of Osiris) was placed, the

1 See Virey, Sept Tombeaux Thébains, Paris, 1891 (Vol. V of the Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique Française au Caire).

2 Tomb of Amenemhet, London, 1915, p. 115.

spirit of the boat might convey the soul to the place where it fain

the ferryman of Osiris, who would, however,

would be. In the Pyramid Texts souls were carried across the rivers ? I by Herefḥaf, only ferry over to the Island of Osiris the souls of the righteous. And even the righteous man was not ferried over unless he knew the ḥeka, or word of power, that would set both the ferryman and the ferry-boat itself in motion. The custom of placing models of boats for the use of the dead in tombs is very old, certainly as old as the Neolithic Period in Egypt, as is proved by the light-brown mud boat painted with red lines that was found at Nakâdah.1 The custom was observed carefully under the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and models of boats, chiefly made of wood, were placed in the tombs until the end of the XIIth dynasty; sometimes these models were so large that they could not be placed in the tomb, and they were therefore deposited near the tombs and covered over with sand. Thus three large boats were found buried in the sand near the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest being, according to M. Daressy,2 about 195 feet long, 16 feet beam, and 16 feet deep. Such " models were in truth veritable river-going boats, and would have carried a large crew. Another huge "model" of a river-boat was found near the tomb of Amenḥetep II in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, but as it disappeared one night in a most mysterious fashion, no measurements of it, so far as I know, were taken. Few, if any, of the small wooden boats which we may assume to have been placed in the tombs of private individuals under the Old Kingdom have come down to us, but numerous examples of those of the Middle Kingdom are to be seen in national museums and in private collections. Some of these contain models of the mummy and a few attendants, and perhaps a priest also, and a bull for sacrifice. In others we see the deceased arrayed in white and seated in a small cabin, and the boat, having both a sail and oars, is supposed to be in motion. To place a model of a boat in a tomb was a simple matter, but to cause it to move over the river and lakes of the Other World it was necessary to sacrifice a bull, and without such a sacrifice it was hopeless to expect the boat to move. To prove to those who were concerned with such matters in the Other World that the bull had been sacrificed, the picture of the bull's hide was either painted on the walls of the cabin in which the figure of the deceased sits, or the cabin itself is actually covered over with the hide of the bull, which is fixed down around the edge by a row of studs.3

It is possible that the large boats found near the Great Pyramid were war-boats, and that it was actually believed that the king in

1 See the description by Schäfer in Aeg. Zeit., 1896, p. 161.

2 Bulletin de l'Institut Egypt., tom. V, Ser. 3, p. 37 ff.

his journey towards the Other World might need an armed escort. Under the Middle Empire many of the small models of boats have on board armed figures. Thus in a wooden boat, about 3 feet 6 inches in length, found at Bani-Hasan in Upper Egypt, the crew proper consisted of eleven sailors, viz., a steersman, a look-out man, three sail-men and six rowers. These were protected by a Sûdânî man, who stands at the bows and holds in his right hand two arrows, and in his left a bow nearly as tall as himself. Near the stern is a small deck-house, on the outside of which hang two shields, and on the inside a case for spears; inside the deck-house are two figures of men, to whom the spears and shields belong, quietly seated playing draughts. It is clear that these men had nothing to do with the working of the boat, and that they were amusing themselves until such time as their services were required in raiding a village for supplies or resisting an attack on the boat.

Though the placing of models of boats in the tombs of private persons ceased after the XIIth dynasty, the belief in the need of boats by the dead did not disappear with the dropping of the custom, and the priests endeavoured to provide them by magic and the use of words of power. They included in the Book of the Dead the "Chapter of bringing along (i.e., providing) a boat in the Other World" (Chapter XCIX), and they drew above it a Vignette in which the deceased is seen standing in a boat with the sail hoisted. It is provided with two oars, which are attached to posts fixed near the stern, and as the deceased Nu is standing doing nothing, and the boat has no crew, we must suppose that the boat is moving by means of some power within itself. And this supposition is correct. The boat of Herefḥaf, the celestial ferryman of the Pyramid Texts, refused to carry over to the Kingdom of Osiris any soul that was not righteous, and that could not prove its freedom from the taint of sin. But for the deceased who wished to sail in the boat depicted in the papyrus another test was prepared; he was obliged to know the names of the stream on which it sailed, and the banks on each side of it, and the landing-place, and the wind that moved it, and also the names of every part of the boat. When he approached the boat each part of it called upon him to declare its name, and when he had done so he was free to enter the boat and sail over to SekhetÀaru, where he would find meat and drink, and be at liberty to take any form he pleased, and go where he pleased. Other Chapters in the Theban Recension enabled him to enter the Boat of Ra and to sail over the heavens from east to west with the Sun-god. The Vignettes of the Sekhet-Aaru show that two boats were always ready for the use of the righteous; the larger one was moved by eight oars which worked themselves, and the motive power of the smaller was the Utchat,, or Eye of Rā.

1 This boat is figured in Garstang, Burial Customs, p. 156.