1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the Papyrus of Nebhopît, in
Turin. This drawing is from part of the same scene as the
illustration on p. 275.
They went fowling among the reed-beds, or retired within their painted pavilions to read tales, to play at draughts, to return to their wives who were for ever young and beautiful.[**]
** Gymnastic exercises, hunting, fishing, sailing, are all
pictured in Theban tombs. The game of draughts is mentioned
in the title of chap. xvii. of the Book of the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 2), and the
women's pavilion is represented in the tomb of Rakhmiri That
the dead were supposed to read tales is proved from the fact
that broken ostraca bearing long fragments of literary works
are found in tombs; they were broken to kill them and to
send on their doubles to the dead man in the next world.
It was but an ameliorated earthly life, divested of all suffering under the rule and by the favour of the true-voiced Onnophris. The feudal gods promptly adopted this new mode of life.
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Éinil
Brugsch-Bey. The original was found in the course of M. de
Morgan's excavations at Mêîr, and is now at Gîzeh. The dead
man is sitting in the cabin, wrapped in his cloak. As far as
I know, this is the only boat which has preserved its
original rigging. It dates from the XIth or XIIth
dynasty.
Each of their dead bodies, mummified, and afterwards reanimated in accordance with the Osirian myth, became an Osiris as did that of any ordinary person. Some carried the assimilation so far as to absorb the god of Mendes, or to be absorbed in him. At Memphis Phtah-Sokaris became Phtah-Sokar-Osiris, and at Thinis Khontamentîfc became Osiris Khontamentît. The sun-god lent himself to this process with comparative ease because his life is more like a man's life, and hence also more like that of Osiris, which is the counterpart of a man's life.