* Marriages between brothers and sisters in Egypt rendered
this word “sister” the most natural appellation.
Those gone before thee “have had their hour of joy,” and they have put off sadness “which shortens the moments until the day when hearts are destroyed!—Be mindful, therefore, of the day when thou shalt be taken to the country where all men are mingled: none has ever taken thither his goods with him, and no one can ever return from it!” The grave did not, however, mingle all men as impartially as the poet would have us believe. The poor and insignificant had merely a place in the common pit, which was situated in the centre of the Assassîf,* one of the richest funerary quarters of Thebes.
* There is really only one complete description of a
cemetery of the poor, namely, that given by A. Rhind.
Mariette caused extensive excavations to be made by Gabet
and Vassalli, 1859-1862, in the Assassif, near the spot
worked by Rhind, and the objects found are now in the Gîzeh
Museum, but the accounts of the work are among his
unpublished papers, vassalli assures me that he sometimes
found the mummies piled one on another to the depth of sixty
bodies, and even then he did not reach the lowest of the
pile. The hurried excavations which I made in 1882 and 1884,
appeared to confirm these statements of Rhind and Vassalli.
Yawning trenches stood ever open there, ready to receive their prey; the rites were hurriedly performed, and the grave-diggers covered the mummies of the day’s burial with a little sand, out of which we receive them intact, sometimes isolated, sometimes in groups of twos or threes, showing that they had not even been placed in regular layers. Some are wrapped only in bandages of coarse linen, and have been consigned without further covering to the soil, while others have been bound round with palm-leaves laid side by side, so as to form a sort of primitive basket. The class above the poorest people were buried in rough-hewn wooden boxes, smaller at the feet than towards the head, and devoid of any inscription or painting. Many have been placed in any coffin that came to hand, with a total indifference as to suitability of size; others lie in a badly made bier, made up of the fragments of one or more older biers. None of them possessed any funerary furniture, except the tools of his trade, a thin pair of leather shoes, sandals of cardboard or plaited reeds, rings of terra-cotta or bronze, bracelets or necklets of a single row of blue beads, statuettes of divinities, mystic eyes, scarabs, and, above all, cords tied round the neck, arms, limbs, or waist, to keep off, by their mystic knots, all malign influences.
The whole population of the necropolis made their living out of the dead. This was true of all ranks of society, headed by the sacerdotal colleges of the royal chapels,* and followed by the priestly bodies, to whom was entrusted the care of the tombs in the various sections, but the most influential of whom confined their attentions to the old burying-ground, “Isît-mâît,” the True Place.**
* We find on several monuments the names of persons
belonging to these sacerdotal bodies, priests of Ahmosis I.,
priests of Thûtmosis I., of Thût-mosis II., of Amenôthes
II., and of Seti I.
** The persons connected with the “True Place” were for a
long time considered as magistrates, and the “True Place” as
a tribunal.
It was their duty to keep up the monuments of the kings, and also of private individuals, to clean the tombs, to visit the funerary chambers, to note the condition of their occupants, and, if necessary, repair the damage done by time, and to provide on certain days the offerings prescribed by custom, or by clauses in the contract drawn up between the family of the deceased and the religious authorities. The titles of these officials indicated how humble was their position in relation to the deified ancestors in whose service they were employed; they called themselves the “Servants of the True Place,” and their chiefs the “Superiors of the Servants,” but all the while they were people of considerable importance, being rich, well educated, and respected in their own quarter of the town.
They professed to have a special devotion for Amenôthes I. and his mother, Nofrîtari, who, after five or six centuries of continuous homage, had come to be considered as the patrons of Khafîtnîbûs, but this devotion was not to the depreciation of other sovereigns. It is true that the officials were not always clear as to the identity of the royal remains of which they had the care, and they were known to have changed one of their queens or princesses into a king or some royal prince.*