Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

By different nations, too, various days in the week are observed for public worship. The Christians keep Sunday, the Greeks Monday, the Persians Tuesday, the Assyrians Wednesday, the Egyptians Thursday, the Turks Friday, and the Jews Saturday.

At the time of a death, in token of grief the mourning women would leave the house where the body was lying, put dust and mud on their heads and faces, and with bare bosoms run through the streets, striking themselves and uttering lamentations. Some of the pictures show even little children thus testifying sorrow, and there is something both pathetic and ludicrous in the scene. At the death and funeral of a member of the royal family great ceremony was observed. The people wept, the temples were closed, and no festival was kept for seventy-two days. The mourners fasted and went round with mud on their heads and their garments knotted together, like girdles, below the breast. They marched in procession, singing funeral dirges. The statement is somewhere made that women of quality were not embalmed immediately, but in so warm a climate the process could not have been long delayed.

From the use of bitumen, “mumia,” the word “mummy” is derived. There were several methods of preservation, varying in expense with the dignity of the deceased and the financial ability of the survivors. The work of preparation for the tomb was, especially in the case of the wealthy and high-born, costly and protracted, and all details were prescribed. The person who, in the service of the embalmer, commenced the task by making a long cut in the side, was, as a matter of form, it is generally believed, driven away with sticks and stones, but some authorities deny this. The organs were then removed through this opening, embalmed and placed in jars, each under the protection of its special god, the four children of Horus. Mesta, with the head of a man, was for the stomach, and, under the protection of Isis, thus justifying a modern theory that a man can be influenced largely through his appetite and is most amiable after dining. The jar Hapi, with the head of an ape, held the smaller intestines, under the protection of Nepthys. The jar Tuan-antef, with the head of a jackal, was for the heart, guarded by Neith. Qubhsennuf was hawk-headed and held the liver. Examples of all these may perhaps be seen in the New York Metropolitan Museum among the Egyptian antiquities and other places. On a box for funerary jars is a figure of Isis, and the inscription, “Says Isis, the divine mother, queen of heaven, first of the gods: ‘I am come that I may be for thy protection, Osiris Chonsu.’”

The body was laid in liquid natron for seventy days, and was then stuffed with spices and natron and sewed up again. Various trees have been supposed to furnish the frankincense used by ancient peoples, the Indian Olibanum among them. The Egyptians used it in their religious rites, burning it on the altars of Osiris, Isis and Pasht, while it was exacted as tribute from some of the conquered nations. It was also used by the Jews in their sanctuary. All parts of the tree emit an agreeable odor, something like lemon, the sap hardens into the gum used in commerce, being extracted by incisions in the bark, as is the case with maple sugar. It is an evergreen, the leaves are prettily notched, the flowers small, pink and star-like, and the fruit also very small and three-sided. It grows in Persia and Arabia.

After the body was thus prepared, the skull, from which the brains had been drawn through the nose, was filled with plaster and the nostrils plugged with small rolls of linen, and obsidian eyes placed in the sockets. The Book of the Dead provided a formula for all this. The eye of Horus was placed upon the breast, which signifies the transformation by which life is preserved and constantly renewed, and was consecrated to the god Ptah. A scarab was laid on the neck, the nails were stained with henna, rings were placed on the hands and chains and necklets on the throat. The bandages were narrow strips of linen inscribed with texts.

When the head was bandaged, an attendant recited this petition: “O most august goddess, O lady of the West, O mistress of the East, come and enter into the two ears of the deceased! O doubly powerful, eternal, young and very mighty lady of the West and mistress of the East, may breathing take place in the head of the deceased in the nether world. Grant that he may see with his eyes, that he may hear with his two ears, that he may breathe through his nose, that he may utter sounds with his mouth and articulate with his tongue in the nether world. Receive his voice in the hall of truth and justice and his triumph in the hall of Seb, in the presence of the great lord of the West. O Osiris (this addressed to the deceased), the thick oil which comes from thee furnishes thy mouth with life and thine eye looketh into the lower heaven, as Ra looketh upon the upper heaven. It giveth thee thy two ears to hear that which thou wishest, just as Shu in Hebit heard merely that which he wished to hear. It giveth thee thy nose to smell a beautiful perfume, like Seb. It giveth thee thy mouth well furnished by its passage (into the throat) like the mouth of Thoth when he weigheth Maat. It giveth thee Maat (Law) in Hebit, O worshipper in Hetbenben, the cries of thy mouth are in Siut. Osiris of Siut comes to thee, thy mouth is the mouth of Ap-not in the mountains of the West.”

The god Osiris, so often referred to, was the great (unseen One), the immortal divine spirit, and was always associated in the Egyptian’s mind with the thought of immortality. He was usually colored blue, the tint of the sky perhaps suggested perpetuity and immortality. The Egyptians from the earliest times seem to have worshipped one divine spirit under a thousand manifestations.

The coffins and covering were of wood, with human head and face; painted with figures of gods, names and titles of the deceased, and cartouch of the king. Inside was frequently a purple ground, painted with yellow figures of apes, lions, etc., adoring Ra. The face on the coffin was often a likeness, and the coffin was painted inside and out with figures of protecting gods. Another coffin, more coarsely made and with less of detail in its paintings, was placed over the first to preserve it. A lady’s coffin sometimes contained spoons with female heads and various toilette articles, mirrors, pins and cases for henna, stibium and other cosmetics, while miniature figures, the little “ushebti,” like troops of slaves, mounted guard. Sometimes these were hollow and contained chapters from the Book of the Dead. An ordinance required that the nearest city should embalm persons who were drowned or seized by crocodiles.

The funeral procession included players on lyres, flutes, harps and servants carrying inverted bouquets, a red calf for sacrifice and white geese. A sort of court was held before the body was deposited in the tomb, in which those who had accusations against the deceased were allowed to present them. If these were sustained, the mummy was sent back to the house; but if not, the priest cried “Approved! Let the good be entombed, and may their souls dwell in Amenti, with Osiris. Judgment is passed in her favor! Let her be buried!” The dead sometimes carried a papyrus on which his good deeds were written. The mummy was placed recumbent or upright in the tomb, and the soul was received by Horus and conducted to Amenti, where a sort of Cerberus kept the gate of Truth. The goddess of Justice, with scales of gold, weighed the virtues of the deceased, which the god Thoth wrote down on a tablet, like the scribes of their daily life, and, after reading, Osiris presented him with the ostrich feather, the emblem of Truth, while Isis led him to the abode of the gods, where he dwelt in perpetual honor and happiness.

Very poetical are some of the tomb inscriptions relating to the future state. “The Shining One cometh who dwelleth in Netat, the Master who dwelleth in Tini (Thinis), and Isis speaks upon thee. Nephthys holdeth converse with thee, and the Shining Ones come up to thee, bowing down even to the ground in adoration at thy feet, by reason of the power of the writing which thou hast, O Pepi, in the region of Sa (Sabu?). Thou goest forth to thy Mother Nut (i.e., the sky), and strengthen thy arm, and she maketh a way for thee through the road to the sky” (perhaps referring to the Milky Way) “to the place where Ra (the sun-deity) abideth. Thou hast then opened the two gates of heaven, thou hast opened the two doors of Quobhu (i.e., the celestial deep), thou hast there found Ra and he watcheth over thee, he hath taken thee by thy hand, he hath guided thee into temples of heaven, and he hath placed thee upon the throne of Osiris.” We are reminded of some parts of the book of Job or some of the picturesque speeches of our own North American Indian.