Let not lies be uttered in presence of the great god, Lord of the Amenti.
Lo! how great art thou (as the triumphant one).”
—Renouf’s translation.
[43] As stated on the mummy case of Panehemisis, ed. Von Bergmann, I., p. 29.
[44] The conception of a kind of hell is certainly found in the book Am Dûat (cf. Jéquier, Le livre de ce qu’il y a dans l'Hadès, Paris, 1894, p. 127); such allusions are, however, exceptional, and Egyptian belief in a hell appears to have existed at times only, and to have been confined to certain classes of society.
[45] The “fields of Aalû”; cf. the “Elysian fields” of the Greeks.
[47] From scenes in the tomb of Mentûherkhepeshf at Thebes, dating from the beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, we have evidence that Egyptian funeral ceremonies occasionally included human sacrifice at the gate of the tomb, the object of such sacrifice being doubtless that of sending servants to the dead. But the practice would seem to have been very exceptional, at any rate after Egypt had entered upon her long period of greatness. See Maspero, Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique du Caire, V., p. 452; cf. Wiedemann, in Le Muséon, XIII., p. 457 et seq.; see also Griffith, The Tomb of Paheri, pp. 20, 21, in the Eleventh Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund.
[48] Chapter vi. of The Book of the Dead consists of this formula, which there reads: “O Ûshabti there! Should I be called and appointed to do any of the labours that are done in the Netherworld by a person according to his abilities, lo! all obstacles have been beaten down for thee; be thou counted for me at every moment, for planting the fields, for watering the soil, for conveying the sands of East and West, Here am I, whithersoever thou callest me!”—Renouf's Translation.
[49] The frontispiece represents one of 399 Ûshabtiû made for a priest named Horût’a, who lived during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. These Ûshabtiû were found at Hawara by Petrie: see Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara, pp. 9, 19.