CEILING DECORATION.
[1] Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt, 174.
[2] Goodyear: Grammar of the Lotus.
CHAPTER XV.
Tombs and Burial Customs.
We have seen in a former chapter that the Egyptians believed one to be composed of three parts: his earthly body, his soul, or ba, and his ka, the ghostlike phantom that grew up with him in life and after death experienced the same needs that he had known while living. All three parts were essential to the existence of any one of them. On this account the Egyptians made every effort to perpetuate the body and to provide necessities for the ka, lest the soul should wither up and be no more. Granting the truth of these beliefs, all that the Nile dwellers did in consequence of a faith in them was logical and natural.
When an Egyptian was ill, a physician and one skilled in magic were summoned. They did what they could to restore him. When their efforts failed, they usually discovered that from his birth it had been decreed that he would meet with an early death, and in this ingenious way they maintained their influence unimpaired.