FOOTNOTES:

The soul of a man leaving him at his death

Fig. 13.—The soul of a man leaving him at his death in the form of a naked child, and received by an angel. (From the porch of the cathedral church of St. Trophimus, at Arles.)

TheSahu,Sāhû, also was considered as immortal. This is invariably depicted as a swathed mummy, and represented the form which the man wore upon earth. Originally it was related to theKa, but whereas the latter was a complete Personality, theSāhûwas nothing but a hull,—a form without contents. Yet this also was of the gods and imperishable, returning to its heavenly home when death had set it free. Since the body, orKha30had also the same form, it naturally came about that when the mummy was mentioned in religious texts as reanimated by theKait was frequently confounded with theSāhû. In this sense it is said that “theSāhûlives in the Sarcophagus (or in the underworld), it grows (rûd), it renews itself (renp).”31But in more precise texts the two things are kept distinct, as,e.g., “theBa(soul) sees itsKha, it rests upon itsSāhû.”32At such times theBahad powerover theSāhû, and, as is said on the Sarcophagus of Panehemisis, “theSāhûlives at the command of theBa.”33

In close connection with theSāhûwas theKhaib,Khaïb, the shadow, represented as a fan, or sunshade (fig. 14), in scenes professing to portray the next world.34

As all earthly forms must needs have their shadows, such was also the case with things in the world to come; there, too, the sun shone and all the optical phenomena of earth were repeated. But, not content to accept this as a simple fact, the Egyptians ascribed separate existences both to the shadows of the dead and to those of gods and genii. According to Egyptian belief a shadow might live on independently, apart from its owner, and this was exactly what it was supposed to do at the moment when death had taken place; then theKhaïbwent forth alone to appear in the realm of the gods. This Ancient Egyptian idea of the independent existence of a man’s shadow recalls to our mindsChamisso’s story of Peter Schlemihl, published in 1823.35

Ba and Khaib

Fig. 14.—BaandKhaïb. (From “The Book of the Dead.”)

TheKa, theÅb, theBa, theSāhû, and theKhaïbconstituted the chief elements of that which was immortal in man, but others were also occasionally included, especially one which was called theKhû,the Luminous.,i.e.the Luminous.36To these, however, there is less frequent reference; they were of importance in local cults only, and were either included among the parts already mentioned or were so vaguely defined that they may be safely left out of account in treating of the soul as conceived by the Egyptians without danger of our conception being falsified by the omission.

When the immortal was thus resolved into its component parts at death, what then became of the human individuality which had resulted from their combined action, and how could its different parts find each other again in the next world, in order to form the new man of the resurrection? The Egyptians had evolved a very simple solution of this problem, although one which, according to our mode of thought, stands in direct contradiction to their doctrine of the soul. It was assumed that in addition to his immortal elements the man as a person of a particular appearance and character was also endowed with a kind of deathlessness, which seems to have held good only for a time, and not for ever. To this conception of a dead man, in whom soul and life were lacking but who in the interim still possessed existence, feeling, and thought, the Egyptians gave the name ofOsiris.

Osiris was the first divine King of Egypt who reigned in true human likeness; he civilised the Egyptians, instructed them in agriculture, gave them laws, and taught them true religion. After a long and blessed reign he fell a prey to the machinations of his brother Set (Typhon), and having been slain was constrained to descend into the underworld, where he evermore lived and reigned as judge and king of the dead. His fate of death was the fate of all men. Every one, when his earthly pilgrimage was ended, must descend into the underworld by the gates of death; but each man hoped to rise again, even as Osiris had risen, to lead henceforth the life of the blessed. In this hope men called their deadOsiris, just as Germans speak of their dead as “blessed,”—hoping that blessedness may indeed be their lot. Death had not changed Osiris; as he had been king on earth, so he was king in the world beyond death. In the same way man, too, remained that which he had been here; death merely made a break in his life, without altering any of his conditions of existence.

HypocephalusFig. 15.—Hypocephalus, from a drawing by Dr. W. H, Rylands.

Fig. 15.—Hypocephalus, from a drawing by Dr. W. H, Rylands.

The relation subsisting between a man’sOsirisand his mummy was not clearly apprehended, even by the Egyptians themselves. Identical they werenot—that fact is obviously implied by the texts, which never once substitute the mummy for the Osiris; men knew also from experience that no mummy had ever left its place of embalmment, or the tomb, to journey on into the next world. Yet mummy andOsiriswere nevertheless not entirely different and distinct; both had the same appearance and the same character. Moreover, the texts describe theOsirisas resembling the mummy in appearance while really differing from it, and the embalmers equipped the mummy as though it were called uponto journey forth as theOsiris. The inherent contradiction in all this arose principally from the fact that the Egyptian hoped and believed that shortly after death he would arise again, complete in flesh and blood as he had lived upon earth; whereas experience contradicted his creed, for it showed him that the mummy never did and never could leave the earth. He extricated himself from the dilemma by providing the mummy with aDoppelgänger: its own perfect counterpart, yet not itself. When once we have familiarised ourselves with this singular idea we find in it a simple key to all the riddles of theOsiris.

The mummy was provided with an artificial heart in the shape of a scarabæus,37because the Osiris could not live without one, and also with various amulets, by virtue of every one of which demons of the next world could be overcome. A stuccoed disc of papyrus, linen, or bronze, which, by the figures and formulæ inscribed upon it, had mystic power to preserve the needful warmth of life to the Osiris (fig. 15), was placed under the head of the mummy.38The solesof the feet which had trodden the mire of earth were removed in order that theOsirismight tread the Hall of Judgment with pure feet; and the gods were prayed to grant milk to the Osiris that he might bathe his feet in it and so assuage the pain which the removal of the soles must needs have caused him. And, finally, the soles which had been excised were placed within the mummy in order that theOsirismight find them to hand for the completion of his Personality.39That nothing might be wanting to this Personality, the gods were besought that the mummy should not suffer earthly corruption, and it was held to be of supreme importance that flesh and bones, muscles and limbs should all remain in place. With the mummy were also placedThe Book of the Dead, as well as other religious and mystic texts needed by theOsirisfor his guidance through the regions beyond the grave, and from which he might learn the prayers which had to be spoken in due order and place according to strict prescriptions. In short,the mummy was treated precisely as though it were anOsiris. But the difference was great: the mummy remained within the sarcophagus in the sepulchral chamber, while theOsirisproceeded on his way.

The journey of theOsiris, treated at wearisome length, forms the favourite subject of Egyptian texts, and to this is devoted the largest and best known work in the religious literature of the nation: the compilation called by usThe Book of the Dead. This book contains no systematic account of the journey, such as the analogy of similar literatures might lead us to expect, but exhibits it in a series of disconnected stages by giving the prayers which theOsirismust repeat when passing through different parts of the underworld, or on encountering certain genii there. A chapter is devoted to each prayer, but the chapters do not follow each other in the order in which the prayers were to be used. The Egyptians never attained to any clear idea of the Osirian underworld; the same confusion and obscurity reigned over it as over their whole conception of the unseen world and of deity. They pondered deeply over a series of separate problems without being able to unite the results into one consistent whole, which shouldcommand acceptance, or to form any definite and permanent topography of the regions beyond the tomb. Hence there is no fixed sequence for the chapters ofThe Book of the Dead; the order varies materially in the different manuscripts to which we are indebted for our knowledge of the work. The number of chapters in the different copies also varies; while in some it is small, in others, as in the Ptolemaic copy for a certain Aûfānkh, published by Lepsius, it reaches to one hundred and sixty-five. Since there was no fixed rule as to order or number, priest or scribe might make a selection of such chapters as he or the family of the deceased held to be the most essential, and each was at liberty to form for himself a more or less modified conception of the characteristics of the underworld.

We cannot here follow theOsiristhrough all the details of his journey, but must be content to know that according to the account inThe Book of the Deadhe issued victorious from all his trials, overcame all enemies whom he encountered, and was ushered at length into the Hall of the Double Truth, and received by the goddess of Truth. Here also he found the chief gods of the Osirian cycle gathered together, and the forty-two assessors of Divine Justicenear the canopy under which the god Osiris was enthroned. Then the deceased spoke, and proceeded to recite the “Negative Confession”—a denial of sins of commission—declaring that he had not been guilty of certain definite sins, and denying one or another particular form of guilt to each of the assessors. He had not done evil, had not robbed, nor murdered, nor lied, not caused any to weep, not injured the property of the gods, and so on.40The judges heard all in silence, giving no sign either of approval or disapproval; but when the confession was ended the heart of the deceased was brought forward and laid in the scales against the image or symbol of Truth. The weighing was superintended by the gods Anubis and Horus,while Thot, the scribe of the gods, stood by ready to record the result (fig. 16).41

The weighing of the dead man's heartFig. 16.—The weighing of the dead man's heart against the feather symbolic of Maāt, the goddess of Truth. (From “The Book of the Dead”)

Fig. 16.—The weighing of the dead man's heart against the feather symbolic of Maāt, the goddess of Truth. (From “The Book of the Dead”)

This was the time for the deceased anxiously to call upon his heart in the prescribed formula fromThe Book of the Dead,42not to bear witnessagainst him, for “the heart of a man is his own god,”43and must now determine his everlasting fate. If his heart were content with him, and the scales turned in his favour, then the god Thot commanded that his heart should be restored to him to be set again in its place. This was done, and forthwith the immortal elements which death had separated began to reunite. HisKa, and all the remaining parts of himself, were now restored to the justifiedOsiris, who was thus built up into the complete man who had once walked the earth, and who now entered upon a new life, the everlasting life of the righteous and the blessed. Hewas joyfully admitted by the gods into their circle, and was henceforth as one of them.

The Book of the Deadand cognate religious texts, always assume that judgment goes in favour of the deceased, that his heart approves him, and that he becomes one of the blessed. Nowhere are we clearly informed as to the fate of the condemned who could not stand before the god Osiris. We are told that the enemies of the gods perish, that they are destroyed or overthrown; but such vague expressions afford no certainty as to how far the Egyptians in general believed in the existence of a hell as a place of punishment or purification for the wicked;44or whether, as seems more probable, they held some general belief that when judgment was pronounced against a man his heart and other immortal parts were not restored to him. For such a man no re-edification and no resurrection was possible. The immortal elements were divine, and by nature pure and imperishable; but they could be preservedfrom entering theOsiris, from re-entering the hull of the man who had proved himself unworthy of them. The soul, indeed, as such did not die, although personal annihilation was the lot of the evil-doer in whom it had dwelt. But it was the hope of continued individuality which their doctrine held out to the Egyptians; this it was which they promised to the good and in all probability denied to the wicked.

The Blessed Dead ploughing and sowingFig. 17.—-The Blessed Dead ploughing and sowing by the waters of the celestial Nile. (From “The Book of the Dead.”)

Fig. 17.—-The Blessed Dead ploughing and sowing by the waters of the celestial Nile. (From “The Book of the Dead.”)

The blessed Dead reaping and treadingFig. 18.—The blessed Dead reaping and treading out the corn in the fields of Aalû.(From “The Book of the Dead.”)

Fig. 18.—The blessed Dead reaping and treading out the corn in the fields of Aalû.(From “The Book of the Dead.”)

After judgment the righteous entered into blessedness, unchanged in appearance as in nature; the only difference being that, while the existence which they had led upon earth had been limited in its duration, the life of the world to come was eternal. But the future blessedness for which the Egyptianhoped was far from being a passive state of bliss such as is promised by most of the higher religions, an absorption into the All or into the Godhead, a dreamy state of floating in everlasting repose, content, and unimpassioned joy. The average Egyptianexpected to lead as active a life in the world to come as he had led here. Although with the Godhead, he counted on retaining his independent individuality in all respects and on working and enjoying himself even as he had done on earth. He expected his chief employment to be agriculture, the occupation which must have seemed most natural to a people almost entirely dependent upon the produce of the fields. A vignette belonging to chap. cx. ofThe Book of the Deadrepresents the dead at work in the fields of the Blessed,45ploughing with oxen, castingthe seed-corn into the furrows (fig. 17), cutting the ripe ears with sickles, driving oxen to tread out the grain from the straw (fig. 18), and finally piling up the corn in heaps against it was required to serve for the making of bread. For change and recreation they sailed upon the canals of the next world in their boats (fig. 19), played at draughts with their own souls, or made offerings to the gods, especially to the celestial Nile, which gave water to their fields and fertility to their seed (fig. 20). All went on exactly as here, excepting that the work of the blessed wasinvariably crowned with success. The Nile always overflowed the fields to best advantage, the corn grew five ells high and its ears were two ells long, the harvest never failed to be abundant, the weather was always favourable, the fresh and pleasant north wind was always blowing, the foe was always conquered, and the gods graciously accepted all offerings and requited the givers with rich gifts of all kinds. In short, the life of the dead in the kingdom of the gods was an idealised earthly life, although not always a very moral life according to our standards.

One of the Osirian dead sailingFig. 19.—One of the Osirian dead sailing in his papyrus bark along the heavenly canals.(From “The Book of the Dead.”)

Fig. 19.—One of the Osirian dead sailing in his papyrus bark along the heavenly canals.(From “The Book of the Dead.”)

The Blessed Dead making offeringsFig. 20.—-The Blessed Dead making offerings to the celestial Nile-god.(From “The Book of the Dead.”)

Fig. 20.—-The Blessed Dead making offerings to the celestial Nile-god.(From “The Book of the Dead.”)

But this belief in the life of the next world as the exact counterpart of this implied a danger which involved the Egyptian in heavy cares. The dead lived, therefore they must of necessity eat and drink, for without these processes the continuation of life was inconceivable; if the dead were without food they would be starved. The inscription of the sepulchral pyramid of Ûnas, an Egyptian king of the Fifth Dynasty, gives expression to this fear. “Evil is it for Ûnas,” says that text, “to be hungry and have nothing to eat; evil is it for Ûnas to be thirsty and have nothing to drink.” The necessities of life were, indeed, partly ensured to the dead by means of the offerings made to them by their sur-vivors on recurrent feast-days, and partly mysteriously created for their use in the next world by the repetition of magic formulæ in this.46But if the offerings ceased, or if no one took the trouble to repeat the formulæ, the dead were left to their own resources, and must work, and till the land, and earn their own living.

statues of servants, potters and bread-makers.Fig. 21.—Ancient kingdomKa-statues of servants−potters and bread-makers. (Originals in the Ghizeh Museum.)

Fig. 21.—Ancient kingdomKa-statues of servants−potters and bread-makers. (Originals in the Ghizeh Museum.)

Such enforced labour could hardly have appeared very attractive to Egyptians of the upper classes, and so an expedient suggested by the conditions of their earthly life was devised for evading it on their behalf. The rich man who had servants to work for him in this world was desirous of securing like service for himself in the world to come. In the time of the Ancient Empire it seems to have been taken for granted that those who were servants in this life would be servants also in the life beyond. With this selfish end in view the rich of those times had placed within their own sepulchral chambersKa-statues of their servants in order to ensure immortal life to them also (fig. 21). As the old Germans were followed into the next world by their slaves and horses; as other uncivilised nations sent the servants of the dead to the realm of death after their masters,47so inAncient Egypt a certain portion of mankind was set apart to serve the rest through all eternity. But as Egyptian civilisation advanced and a more humane state of feeling dawned, these views were modified, and the thought gained ground that all Egyptians were equal in the presence of death and of the gods. So the rich man was obliged to renounce his hope of finding his servants again at his service beyond the tomb, and was face to face with the old fear of being reduced to heavy toil through the possible negligence of his successors.

A most singular expedient was adopted to avert this danger: little images of clay, or wood, or stone, or even of bronze, were made in human likeness, inscribed with a certain formula,48and placed within the tomb, in the hope that they would there attain to life and become the useful servants of the blessed dead; they are the so-calledÛshabtiû(or Respondents), of which hundreds and thousands of specimensmay be found in collections of Egyptian antiquities (see Frontispiece49). These “servants for the underworld,” or “servants to theOsiris,” as the texts call them, owed their very being and life to the dead, and stood to him in the same relation as man to God. And as men seek to testify their gratitude to the Creator by doing Him service, so it was hoped that these little figures would show their thankfulness by their diligence, and spare their master and maker all toil.

Many other customs arose out of similar ideas to those which gave rise to the institution ofÛshabtiû. Articles of personal adornment and for toilet use, wreaths, weapons, carriages, playthings, and tools were given to the dead, and a whole set of household furniture was often laid away in the grave in order that theOsirisshould not be obliged to set to work at once to make or collect these things for himself on his entrance into the next world; for this purpose choice was often made of such objects as the man had used and valued in his lifetime. All this care,however, was bestowed not simply in the interest of those who had entered upon the life everlasting but also in that of those who were left behind. Among other powers possessed by the dead was that of going to and fro upon earth; and, to prevent their exercise of it, all things whose lack might impel them to revisit the scenes of their earthly lives were placed within the tombs, for their visits might not be altogether pleasant for survivors withholding any part of the goods which belonged to the dead. But these facts must not lead us to conclude that the tomb was the permanent dwelling of the dead, and that the objects placed within it were really intended for his use there, and for all time.

As the amulets laid in and about the mummy were for the use of theOsiris, so the furniture and implements placed near the coffin were intended not so much for the mummy lying in its tomb as for the Osiris dwelling with the gods. Each of these objects had its heavenly counterpart, even as the mummy was represented by theOsiris.50

It was thus that the Egyptians sought to make themselves homes in the next world, and to secure all the comforts and pleasures of their earthly life in the life which was to come. Nevertheless, the pious Egyptian did not expect to remain for ever as an Osiris, or as a god in human likeness: he rather hoped for ever-increasing freedom, for the power of taking other shapes and transforming himself at will into quadrupeds; or into birds—such as the swallow or the heron; or into plants—more especially the lotus; or even into gods.51

This is no doctrine of compulsory transmigration such as used to be freely ascribed to the Egyptians on the strength of the statements made by Herodotus52; there is no question here of souls beingforced to assume fresh forms in which their purification is gradually worked out and their perfection achieved. To the Egyptian transmigration was not the doom of imperfect souls, but a privilege reserved for such as had already attained perfection. Again and again the texts assert that the blessed may assume any form and visit any place at will; body and place can no longer enthral him. He may travel round the heavens with the Sun-god Rā, or arise from the shades with Osiris in the “divine night” of the 26th of the month Khoiak (i.e.at the winter solstice); he is even as a god, nay, he is himself a god, able to live in and by Truth, actually taking it, indeed, as food and drink.

The power of the soul to incarnate itself at pleasure became one of the chief reasons for embalming the body. As we have seen, the preservation of the body was held to be necessary because the mummywas supposed to be the material form of which the Osiris was the essential reality. But this temporary need might have been met in simpler fashion, since the journey of the Soul to the Hall of Judgment was accomplished in a comparatively short time. There was, however, a further need for which provision had to be made. The soul might sometimes visit the mummy, again take up its abode in its former body, and, animating it anew, return to earth under that form and thus revisit the spots where once it had dwelt. To this end it required an earthly and tangible body, and this was supplied by the mummy. If the mummy were destroyed, then the soul not only lost one of the forms in which it might incarnate itself, but that one with which its interests were naturally most closely connected—that one which linked it to earth and best enabled it to exhort the survivors to remember the funerary offerings, and to see how it fared with those whom it had been obliged to leave behind. The destruction of the mummy did not involve the destruction of the soul, but it narrowed the soul’s circle of activity and limited its means of transmigration.

This doctrine gave rise to the necromantic theory that a soul might be compelled by means of magicformulæ to re-enter its body, and to speak through the dead lips. The magician who had brought this about could then stipulate for all kinds of favours before restoring the soul to freedom. It is true that such an attempt was reckoned highly dangerous; and, according to a tale dating from Ptolemaic times, a royal prince named Setna,53who had succeeded in the undertaking, paid heavily for having sought to make the spirits of the dead subject to him, when, through his own imprudence, he was overpowered by those whom he had invoked.

The above sketch of the eschatology of the Ancient Egyptians is drawn from their own religious texts. As to the origin of that system and the transformations which it had undergone before reaching the form under which it is known to us we are as yet entirely ignorant; but it is obvious that it must have developed gradually and assimilated many originally heterogeneous doctrines. For instance, theKaand theOsirismust surely once have had the same significance, and not have been considered as twodifferent factors of the dead man’s being until time had brought about the fusion of two theological systems—in one of which theKawas regarded as the spiritualDoppelgänger, or Double, while in the other it was named theOsiris. All attempts at solving these and similar problems connected with this subject are, as yet, mere hypotheses. As far back as Egyptian history has been traced the people appear to have been in possession not only of written characters, national art and institutions, but also of a complete system of religion. As in all other departments of Egyptian life and thought, so with the Egyptian religion—we cannot trace its beginnings. In the earliest glimpse of it afforded by the Egyptian texts it appears as perfect in all its essential parts; nor were after-times able to effect much change in it by the addition of new features. What greatly intensifies the deep historical interest of Egyptian eschatology is that it testifies not only to the fact that a whole nation believed in the immortality of the soul four thousand years before the birth of Christ, but also that this nation had even then succeeded in clearly picturing the future life to themselves after a fashion which may indeed often seem strange and incomprehensible to modernminds but to which we cannot deny a certain consistency and a deep spiritual connotation.

We shall not here discuss the many analogies subsisting between Egyptian belief and the religious systems of other nations and times, nor yet its great differences from them; and it is for the sciences of anthropology and comparative religion to determine to what extent the Egyptian doctrine of immortality originated in Egypt itself, and how much was brought there by the Egyptians from the common home which they had shared with the Semites and Indo-europeans.

1The whole process of embalmment is briefly described in theRhind Papyrus, edited by Birch, London, 1863, and byBrugsch, Leipzig, 1865. The procedure of thetaricheutsis described in a Vienna papyrus, edited byBergmann, Vienna, 1887, and the conclusion of their operations in a Paris papyrus and a Bûlaq papyrus, edited byMaspero,Pap. du Louvre, Paris, 1875. For the transport of the mummy, seeDümichen,Kal. Insch., pl. 35sqq. The minutely ordered ritual for the ceremonies at the door of the tomb was published and investigated inSchiaparelli'sadmirable work,Il Libro dei Funerali, Turin, 1881—1890.

2On these component parts cf.Wiedemannin theProceedings of the Orientalist Congress at St. Etienne, II. (1878), p. 159et seq.Many parallel texts to the additional chapter ofThe Book of the Dead, there referred to, may be found inVon Bergmann'sSarkophag des Panehemisis, I., p. 22; II., p. 74et seq.

3On this accountKawas sometimes used as interchangeable withRen(Ren)—name.

4There is no modern word which exactly expresses the Egyptian idea of theKa; Maspero’s translation of “Double,Doppelgänger” is the best hitherto proposed; Meyer’s translation of “Ghost” (Gesch. Æg., p. 83) is altogether misleading.

5The illustration is taken fromLepsius,Denkmäler, III. 21. Here the solar cartouche, or throne-name, of Thothmes II., and his Horus-: orKa-name, are palimpsests effacing the names of Queen Hatshepsû Rāmaka, the builder of the temple. The figures in this scene originally represented the Queen and herKa; but as she is always portrayed in male attire throughout the temple, it was only necessary to change her names in order to appropriate her figure as that of a king. The first satisfactory explanation of the Horus-orKa-name was given byPetrieinA Season in Egypt, pp. 21, 22; cf.Maspero,Études Égyptologiques) II., p. 273et seq.He shows that the rectangular parallelogram in which the Horus-name is written is the exact equivalent of the square panel over the false door in the tomb, by which theKawas supposed to pass from the sepulchral vault into the upper chamber, or tomb-chapel, where offerings were provided for it. A private person had but one name, which was also the name of hisKa. But, on ascending the throne, the king took four new names in addition to the one which he had hitherto borne, and among them a name for hisKa.

6We have a crude representation of thisKasign, dating from the reign of Amenemhat I., of the Twelfth Dynasty; seePetrie,Tanis I.(Second Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund), pl. I., No. 3.

7Lepsius,Denkmäler, III. 186. The hands of theKa-staff have doubtless a common origin with those of theKa-sign—Ka-sign.

8Lepsius,Denkmäler, III. 87.

9In the course of his excavations at Dêr el Bahri, for the Egypt Exploration Fund, M. Naville discovered the originals of these scenes in a series of bas-reliefs representing the birth of Queen Hatshepsû which were plagiarised by Amenophis III.

10Lepsius,Denkmäler, III. 21, 129.

11Lepsius,Denkmäler, III., pl. 75.

12Such prayers were also inscribed on funerary stelæ in order that passers-by might repeat them for the benefit of the dead. These inscriptions vary but little. The prayer on the funerary tablet of Khemnekht (now in the Agram Museum) dates from the Thirteenth Dynasty, and runs as follows: “O every scribe, every Kherheb (lector, priestly reciter), all ye who pass by this stele, who love and honour your gods, and would have your offices to flourish (shine) for your children, say ye: ‘Let royal offerings be brought unto Osiris for the Ka of the priest Khemnekht’”: For an account of the development of the formulæ on funerary stelæ, seeWiedemann,Observations sur quelques stèles funéraires égyptiennes, Le Muséon X., 42, 199et seq.

13The particulars above summarised may be verified from contracts which a prince (erpā-hā) of Siût concluded with the priests of Anubis under the Tenth or Eleventh Dynasty (discussed byMaspero,Transactions of the Society of Biblical ArchæologyVII., p. 6et seq.,Études de Mythologie, I., p. 62et seq., andErman,Æg. Zeitschr., 1882, p. 159 ff., the best publication of these inscriptions being that byGriffith,Inscriptions of Siût and Dêr Rîfeh, London, 1889. Similar contracts were made even in the times of the pyramid-building kings: cf.e.g.Lepsius,Denkmäler, II. 3-7;De Rougé,Inscriptions hiéroglyphiques, pl. I.;Mariette,Les Mastabahs, p. 316et seq.)

14As in the case of statues found in the temple of Ptah at Memphis (Mariette,Mon. div., pl. 27 b), and in that of Amon at Karnak (Mariette,Karnak, pl. 8 f; cf.Lepsius,Auswahl, pl. 11).

15This striking theory was first broached byMaspero,Rec. de Trav., I., p. 154;Études de Mythologie, I., p. 80.

16We find occasional mention of theKaof the East and theKaof the West (Wilkinson,Manners and Customs, 2nd ed., III., pp. 200, 201), which are to be considered as being the Kas of the deities of the East and of the West, and not asKasof the abstract conceptions of East and West.

17Lepsius,Denkmäler, III. 194, l. 13;Dümichen,Tempelinschriften, I., pl. 29;Von Bergmann,Hierogl. Insch., pl. 33 pl. 61, col. 2;Renouf,Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, VI., pp. 504et seq.;Brugsch,Dictionary, Supplt., pp. 997et seq., 1230.

18Cf. 1 Chron.XXIX.11, 12; Isa.XI.2.

Back to Index Next