to be respected. The kings who built the Pyramids endowed a priestly office for the purpose of celebrating the periodical rites in their behalf. The same priest often officiated for several departed kings. The tablet of the Louvre shows that Psamtīk, son of Ut'ahor, who lived in the time of the twenty-sixth dynasty, was priest of Chufu or Cheops of the great Pyramid, and of two other sovereigns of the same period, who certainly had lived and endowed his office more than two thousand years before his time. We have actually the tombs of some of his predecessors who filled the office almost immediately after the death of the sovereign.

Innumerable inscriptions call upon the passers-by to invoke the gods in behalf of the departed. "O all ye who are living upon earth," "who love life and hate death," "you who are in the service of Osiris or of Anubis," "priest, prophet, scribe, spondist, ministrant, male or female, every man and every woman passing by this tomb, statue, tablet or shrine, whether you be passing northwards or southwards as you desire to enjoy the favour of the king-or as you desire your names to remain upon earth, or to transmit your dignities to your children-or as you love and obey the gods of Egypt, or as you wish to be blest by the gods of your cities, or by your wish to possess a part of the divine abode of Osiris who dwells in Amenti-or to be faithful to the great God-or as you wish to flourish upon earth and pass on to the blessed--say a Suten

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hotep-tu," the entire formula being repeated, or merely (as an abbreviation) "thousands of oxen, geese, bread, beer," &c.

Such is the burden of all these funereal tablets. No one tablet contains all that I have quoted, and no two tablets are exactly alike, but all are made upon the same model and contain some portions of the whole. Many centuries after the construction of a tomb, Egyptian travellers have left a record upon its walls of the splendour of the sacred abode, of the abundance of the materials which they found provided for the fulfilment of the rites for the departed, and of their own repetition of the funereal formula.1 The Suten-hotep-ta was supposed to have been delivered by divine revelation. An ancient text speaks of a "Suten-hotep-tu exactly corresponding to the texts of sacrificial offerings handed down by the ancients as proceeding from the mouth of God."2

It was most important that a man should have a son established in his seat after him who should perform the due rites and see that they were performed by others; that he should, as it is expressed, "flourish in the children of his children." The duty of performing these rites comes immediately after that of worshipping the gods, in the enumeration of virtuous actions. It

1

Champollion, Notices, Vol. II. pp. 423-425. 2 Denkm. iii. pl. 13.

is enforced in the moral writings as well as in the theology of ancient Egypt.

"Give the water of the funereal sacrifice to thy father and mother who repose in the tomb; renew the water of the divine oblations. . . . . Neglect not to do it, even when thou art away from thy dwelling. Thy son will do it for thee in like manner."

These words are taken from the Maxims of Ani.

We find the following among the good wishes made for a person: "Mayst thou receive the lustral water from the hands of thy son each tenth day. . . . . May every heir who offers the libation to his own father, contribute his offering of water to thy ka; and as he propitiates his father or buries his mother, may thy name be uttered together with his own father."1

On the other hand, the wish that a man may not have a son after him is the most terrible of imprecations.

"Whoever shall preserve this inscription," we read, "in the temple of Amon Ra, the Lord of Senneferet, he shall be favoured by Amon Ra, and his son shall be established in his place; but whosoever shall remove this inscription from the temple of Amon Ra, Amon Rā will curse him, and his son shall not be established in his place." 2

1 Louvre, Inv. 908.

2 Zeitschrift f. ägypt. Sprache, 1871, p. 60.

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Another text says:

"Whoso destroys this inscription, Bast, the great goddess of Bubastis, will annihilate him for ever; he will never have a son after him."1

The trustees of a religious foundation are threatened with the most tremendous penalties in case of their not carrying out the intentions of the founder; they are to "be delivered over to Sutech in the day of his wrath, whose serpent diadem will spit out flames of fire upon their heads, annihilating their limbs and consuming their bodies. May they not receive the reward of righteousness; may they not partake of the feast of the blessed; may the water from the spring of the river not refresh them; may it not come to pass that their posterity should sit in their place." But to faithful trustees the most splendid prospects are held out, one of which is, "Son of son, heir of heir, will be born to him." "May your bodies," they are finally told, "rest in the nether world of Amenti after a course of a hundred and ten years, and may the sacrificial gifts likewise be multiplied to you."

The inscription of Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, in the fourth century before Christ, ends as follows:2

"The land of Buto, whoever tries to plan the removal of any part thereof, may he incur the ban of those gods who are in Pe, may he be accursed by those who

Zeitschrift f. ägypt. Sprache, 1871, p. 60.

2 Ib. p. 8.

are in Tep, may he be in the flame of Aptaui in the day of her terrible wrath, may he have no son or daughter to give him the lustral water."

One of the most recent of the Ptolemaic tablets records the fulfilment of a promise made in a dream by the god I-em-hotep to Pasherenptah with reference to the birth of a son, and it contains the invocation, "Oh, all ye gods and goddesses who are unnamed, let a child remain in my place for ever and ever keeping alive the name of my house."

The lustral water offered upon earth to the dead had its counterpart in the other world. The most

usual representation of this is the picture in which the goddess Nut pours out the water of life to the deceased, from the interior of a sycamore-tree. published by M. Chabas,1 the deceased kneels before In a picture Osiris, and receives from him the water of life from a vessel under which is written anch ba, "that the soul may live." The picture is taken from the mummy of a priest who lived twelve hundred years before Christ. But the same idea occurs in a Greek inscription found at Saqara by Mr. C. Wescher. "She lived twenty-five years," the inscription says, "and Osiris beneath the earth gave her the refreshing water." 2

Now let me remind you that the oblation of cakes

1 Revue Arch. 1862, Vol. I. p. 370.

2 Ib. 1864, Vol. II. p. 222.