* The name of luminous was at first so explained as to make
the light wherewith souls were clothed, into a portion of
the divine light. In my opinion the idea is a less abstract
one, and shows that, as among many other nations, so with
the Egyptians the soul was supposed to appear as a kind of
pale flame, or as emitting a glow analogous to the
phosphorescent halo which is seen by night about a piece of
rotten wood, or putrefying fish. This primitive conception
may have subsequently faded, and khû the glorious one, one
of the mânes, may have become one of those flattering
names by which it was thought necessary to propitiate the
dead; it then came to have that significance of resplendent
with light which is ordinarily attributed to it.
** The incantations of which the Leyden Papyrus published
by Pleyte is full are directed against dead men or dead
women who entered into one of the living to give him the
migraine, and violent headaches. Another Leyden Papyrus,
briefly analyzed by Ohabas, and translated by Maspero,
contains the complaint, or rather the formal act of
requisition of a husband whom the luminous of his wife
returned to torment in his home, without any just cause for
such conduct.
One effectual means there was, and one only, of escaping or preventing these visitations, and this lay in taking to the tomb all the various provisions of which the double stood in need, and for which it visited their dwellings. Funerary sacrifices and the regular cultus of the dead originated in the need experienced for making provision for the sustenance of the manes after having secured their lasting existence by the mummification of their bodies.[*]
* Several chapters of the Book of the Dead consist of
directions for giving food to that part of man which
survives his death, e.g. chap, cv., "Chapter for providing
food for the double" (Naville's edition, pl. cxvii.), and
chap, cvi., "Chapter for giving daily abundance unto the
deceased, in Memphis" (Naville's edition, pl. cxviii.).
2 Stela of Antûf I., Prince of Thebes, drawn by Faucher-
Gudin from a photograph taken by Emil Brugsch-Bey. Below,
servants and relations are bringing the victims and cutting
up the ox at the door of the tomb. In the middle is the dead
man, seated under his pavilion and receiving the sacrifice:
an attendant offers him drink, another brings him the haunch
of an ox a third a basket and two jars; provisions fill the
whole chamber. Behind Antûf stand two servants, the one
fanning his master, and the second offering him his staff
and sandals. The position of the door, which is in the
lowest row of the scenes, indicates that what is represented
above it takes place within the tomb.
Gazelles and oxen were brought and sacrificed at the door of the tomb chapel; the haunches, heart, and breast of each victim being presented and heaped together upon the ground, that there the dead might find them when they began to be hungry. Vessels of beer or wine, great jars of fresh water, purified with natron, or perfumed, were brought to them that they might drink their fill at pleasure, and by such voluntary tribute men bought their good will, as in daily life they bought that of some neighbour too powerful to be opposed.
The gods were spared none of the anguish and none of the perils which death so plentifully bestows upon men. Their bodies suffered change and gradually perished until nothing was left of them. Their souls, like human souls, were only the representatives of their bodies, and gradually became extinct if means of arresting the natural tendency to decay were not found in time. Thus, the same necessity that forced men to seek the kind of sepulture which gave the longest term of existence to their souls, compelled the gods to the same course. At first, they were buried in the hills, and one of their oldest titles describes them as those "who are upon the sand,"[*] safe from putrefaction; afterwards, when the art of embalming had been discovered, the gods received the benefit of the new invention and were mummified.
* In the Book of Knowing that which is in Hades, for the
fourth and fifth hours of the night, we have the description
of the sandy realm of Sokaris and of the gods Hiriû Shâîtû-
senû, who are on their sand. Elsewhere in the same book we
have a cynocephalus upon its sand, and the gods of the
eighth hour are also mysterious gods who are on their sand.
Wherever these personages are represented in the vignettes,
the Egyptian artist has carefully drawn the ellipse painted
in yellow and sprinkled with red, which is the conventional
rendering of sand, and sandy districts.
Each nome possessed the mummy and the tomb of its dead god: at Thinis there was the mummy and the tomb of Anhuri, the mummy of Osiris at Mendes, the mummy of Tûmû at Heliopolis.[*] In some of the nomes the gods did not change their names in altering the mode of their existence: the deceased Osiris remained Osiris; Nit and Hâthor when dead were still Nît and Hâthor, at Saïs and at Denderah. But Phtah of Memphis became Sokaris by dying; Uapûaîtû, the jackal of Siût, was changed into Anubis;[**] and when his disk had disappeared at evening, Anhûri, the sunlit sky of Thinis, was Khontamentît, Lord of the West, until the following day.