The beautiful alabaster coffin in which the mummy of King Sety was laid is now in the Soane Museum, London. When it was discovered, nearly a century ago, it was empty, and it was not till 1872 that some modern tomb-robbers found the body of the King, along with other royal mummies, hidden away in a deep pit among the cliffs. Now it lies in the museum at Cairo, and you can see the face of this great King, its fine, proud features not so very much changed, we can well believe, from what they were when he reigned 3,200 years ago. In the same museum you can look upon the faces of Tahutmes III., the greatest soldier of Egypt; of Ramses II., the oppressor of the Israelites; and, perhaps most interesting of all, of Merenptah, the Pharaoh who hardened his heart when Moses pled with him to let the Hebrews go, and whose picked troops were drowned in the Red Sea as they pursued their escaping slaves.
It is very strange to think that one can see the actual features and forms on which the heroes of our Bible story looked in life. The reason of such a thing is that the Egyptians believed that when a man died, his soul, which passed to the life beyond, loved to return to its old home on earth, and find again the body in which it once dwelt; and even, perhaps, that the soul's existence in the other world depended in some way on the preservation of the body. So they made the bodies of their dead friends into what we call "mummies," steeping them for many days in pitch and spices till they were embalmed, and then wrapping them round in fold upon fold of fine linen. So they have endured all these hundreds of years, to be stored at last in a museum, and gazed upon by people who live in lands which were savage wildernesses when Egypt was a great and mighty Empire.
CHAPTER XIII
AN EGYPTIAN'S HEAVEN
In this chapter I want to tell you a little about what the Egyptians thought of heaven—what it was, where it was, how people got there after death, and what kind of a life they lived when they were there. They had some very quaint and curious ideas about the heavens themselves. They believed, for instance, that the blue sky overhead was something like a great iron plate spread over the world, and supported at the four corners, north, south, east, and west, by high mountains. The stars were like little lamps, which hung down from this plate. Right round the world ran a great celestial river, and on this river the sun sailed day after day in his bark, giving light to the world. You could only see him as he passed round from the east by the south to the west, for after that the river ran behind high mountains, and the sun passed out of sight to sail through the world of darkness.
Behind the sun, and appearing after he had vanished, came the moon, sailing in its own bark. It was protected by two guardian eyes, which watched always over it (Plate 13), and it needed the protection, for every month it was attacked by a great enemy in the form of a sow. For a fortnight the moon sailed on safely, and grew fuller and rounder; but at the middle of the month, just when it was full, the sow attacked it, tore it out of its place, and flung it into the celestial river, where for another fortnight it was gradually extinguished, to be revived again at the beginning of the next month. That was the Egyptians' curious way of accounting for the waxing and waning of the moon, and many of their other ideas were just as quaint as this.
I do not mean to say anything of what they believed about God, for they had so many gods, and believed such strange things about them, that it would only confuse you if I tried to make you understand it all. But the most important thing in all the Egyptian religion was the belief in heaven, and in the life which people lived there after their life on earth was ended. No other nation of these old times ever believed so firmly as did the Egyptians that men were immortal, and did not cease to be when they died, but only began a new life, which might be either happy or miserable, according to the way in which they had lived on earth.
They had a lot of different beliefs about the life after death, some of them rather confusing, and difficult to understand; but I shall tell you only the main things and the simplest things which they believed. They said, then, that very long ago, when the world was young, there was a great and good King called Osiris, who reigned over Egypt, and was very good to his subjects, teaching them all kinds of useful knowledge. But Osiris had a wicked brother named Set, who hated him, and was jealous of him. One day Set invited Osiris to a supper, at which he had gathered a number of his friends who were in the plot with him. When they were all feasting gaily, he produced a beautiful chest, and offered to give it to the man who fitted it. One after another they lay down in the chest, but it fitted none of them. Then at last Osiris lay down in it, and as soon as he was inside, his wicked brother and the other plotters fastened the lid down upon him, and threw the chest into the Nile. It was carried away by the river, and at last was washed ashore, with the dead body of the good King still in it.
But Isis, wife of Osiris, sought for her husband everywhere, and at last she found the chest with his body. While she was weeping over it the wicked Set came upon her, tore his brother's body to pieces, and scattered the fragments far and wide; but the faithful Isis traced them all, and buried them wherever she found them.