The river he calls Ocean, as they say, because the Egyptians call the Nile Oceanus in their own language [??]: the gates of the Sun are derived from Heliopolis: and the meadow is so called, from the lake which is named Acherusian, and which is near Memphis, being surrounded by beautiful meadows, and canals, with lotus and flowering rushes: and that it is consistent with the imitation to make the deceased inhabit these places: because the greater number and the most considerable of the Egyptian catacombs are there, the bodies being ferried over the river and the Acherusian lake, and the mummies being deposited in the catacombs there situated. And the rest of the Grecian mythology respecting Hades agrees also with the present practice in Egypt: the boat which carries over the bodies, and is called BARIS; and the penny that is given for the fare to the boatman, who is called CHARON in the language of the country. They say there is also, in the neighbourhood of the same place, a temple of the nocturnal Hecate, with the gates of Cocytus and of Lethe, fastened with brazen bars; and that there are, besides, other gates of Truth; and near them a figure of Justice without a head.
§ 97. In the city of Acanthae, on the Libyan side of the Nile, 120 stadia from Memphis, they say there is a barrel pierced with holes, to which 360 of the priests carry water from the Nile: and that a mystery is acted in an assembly in that neighbourhood, in which a man is made to twist one end of a long rope, while other persons untwist the other end; an allusion to which has become proverbial in Greece. Melampus, they say, brought from Egypt the mysteries of Bacchus, and the stories of Saturn, and the battles of the Titans: and Daedalus imitated the Egyptian labyrinth, in that which he built for king Minos: the Egyptian labyrinth having been constructed by Mendes, or by Marus, an ancient king, many years before his time; and that the style of the ancient statues in Egypt is the same with that of the statues sculptured in Greece: but that the very fine Propylon of Vulcan in Memphis was the work of Daedalus as an architect: and that being admired for this work, he had the honour of obtaining a place, in the same temple, for a wooden statue of himself, which was the work of his own hands: that his talents and inventive faculties at last acquired him even divine honours, and that there is to this day a temple of Daedalus, on one of the islands near Memphis, which is honoured by the neighbouring inhabitants. That Homer had been in Egypt, they argue, among other reasons, from the administration of the Nepenthes by Helen to Telemachus, which occasioned a forgetfulness of the evils that had befallen him: for he seems to have perfectly understood the nature of this remedy, which he says Helen received in the Egyptian Thebes, of Polydamne the wife of Thon, for that the women of the same place still make use of it, for a similar purpose, and it is only among the Diospolitan women, that it is known as a remedy for anger and for sorrow, and that Diospolis is the Thebes of the ancients; and that Venus is called golden by its inhabitants from an old tradition, and that there is a field belonging to the golden Venus in the neighbourhood of Momemphis: and that he has copied from them the history of the embraces of Jupiter and Juno, and of Jove’s absence in Ethiopia: for that they have an annual ceremony, in which the temple or shrine of Jupiter is carried across the river into Libya, and is brought back in a few days, as if the deity returned from Ethiopia: and that the embraces of the deities are found (§ 346) in their assemblies, when both of their shrines are carried to a mountain which is strewed by the priest with flowers. [Analogies all too slight to be admitted as any thing like evidence.]
§ 98. They say also that Lycurgus and Plato and Solon transferred many of the customs of the Egyptians into their own establishments. And that Pythagoras learned in Egypt both his divinity and his geometrical theorems, and his arithmetic, and the transmigration of the soul into all kinds of animals. They believe too that Democritus spent five years among them, and was taught by them many things relating to astronomy. And that Oenopides [of Chius] in the same way, by living with their priests and astronomers, learned of them, among many other things, the position of the sun’s orbit, that it moved obliquely, and in a direction contrary to that of the other stars. And that Eudoxus, in the same manner, gained great reputation among his countrymen, by having studied astronomy among them, and made known many of their useful discoveries among the Greeks: and the most celebrated of the ancient statuaries had lived among them, Telecles and Theodorus, the sons of Rhoecus, who made for the Samians the image of the Pythian Apollo: for it is said that one half of the image was executed in Samos by Telecles, and the other half at Ephesus by his brother Theodorus; and that both parts, when put together, agreed so well with each other, as to appear precisely as if they had been the work of one person: and that this kind of workmanship was never practised by the Greeks, but was very common among the Egyptians: for that with them it was not usual to judge of the symmetry of a figure by the sight of the whole, as with the Greeks; but that when the stones were quarried and properly cut out, they then proceeded by proportion from the smallest to the greatest; and dividing the whole fabric of the body into one and twenty parts, and a quarter, they arranged the whole symmetry, accordingly: and hence, when their artists consult with each other about the magnitude of any figure, although separated from each other, they still make the results agree so well, that this peculiarity of their practice excites the greatest astonishment: and that the image in Samos, according to this refinement of the Egyptians, being divided from the summit of the head, and as far as the middle, is still perfectly consistent with itself, and in all parts alike: they also observe that it extremely resembles the Egyptian figures as having the hands stretched out, and the legs separated, as in walking. And enough has now been said of what is most celebrated and remarkable in the country and customs of the Egyptians: [the greater part of which is of much more value, as occasionally furnishing anecdotes from the arguments that were advanced by the priests in their discussions, than as by any means rendered fully credible by the application of these anecdotes.]
The process of embalming is described very nearly in the same manner by Herodotus. “Their customs,” he says, Book II. §. 85, “relating to mourning and to funerals are these. When any person of consequence dies, the females of his family cover their heads and faces with clay, and leaving the dead body at home, wander through the city, beating themselves, wearing a close girdle, and having their bosoms bare, accompanied by all their intimate friends: the men also make similar lamentations in a separate company: they then proceed to embalm the body.
“(86). This service is performed by persons appointed to exercise the art, as their business: and when a dead body is brought to them, they show their patterns of mummies in wood, imitated by sculpture: and the most elaborate of these they say belongs to the character of [Osiris] one, whose name I do not think it pious to mention on such an occasion: the second, that they show, is simpler and less costly: the third, the cheapest of all: and having shown them these, they inquire in which way the service shall be performed: the parties then make their agreement, and the body is left for preparation. The interior soft parts being removed both from the head and from the trunk, the cavities are washed with palm wine and fragrant gums, and partly filled up with myrrh and cassia and other spices; the whole is then steeped in a solution of soda for seventy days, which is the longest time permitted; and then, having been washed, the body is rolled up with bandages of cotton cloth, being first smeared with gum, instead of glue. The relations then, receiving the body, procure a wooden case for it in a human shape, and inclose the dead body in it: and when thus inclosed, they treasure it up in an appropriate building or apartment, placing it upright against the wall. And this is the most expensive mode of preparation.
“(87). For those who prefer the middle class, in order to avoid expense, the process is simplified by omitting the actual removal of the interior parts, and introducing a corrosive liquid to melt them down: the soda consumes the flesh, so that skin and bone only is left, when the body is restored to the friends.
“(88). The third and simplest process is merely to cleanse the body well, within and without, by means of some vegetable decoctions, and to keep it in the alkaline solution for the seventy days, without further precautions.”
It is difficult to say, according to these statements, what part of the ceremony might be considered as actually constituting the burial. But we find in a Greek inscription on the coffin of a mummy, found by Mr. Grey, which he has had the goodness to communicate to me, “The tomb of Tphuto (or Tphus) the daughter of Heracléus Soter and Sarapus. She was born in the Vth year of Adrian our Lord, the 2d Athyr [III], and died in the XIth year, Tybi [V] the 10th. Aged six years, two months, and eight days. She was buried in the XIIth year, the 12th of Athyr.” So that here the burial took place a full year after the death; and there was time enough for every imaginable luxury of the embalmer’s art. The coffin is not, in this instance, made in imitation “of the human form,” as the coffins of the more ancient mummies, but it is merely an oblong trunk, with an arched cover, and a pillar rising a little at each angle. We have no precise account of the liturgies, or services, performed to these canonized personages, but they were probably some forms of adoration, combined with offerings of flowers and fruit, which were placed before or beside them, and it is well known that some corn and some cakes have been found still standing in baskets, in some of the catacombs lately opened; and that specimens of them have been brought to the British Museum.
To administer these rites, and to renew these offerings, at least as often as could be required, was apparently the duty of the priests, and they were no doubt amply remunerated for their attentions, by the families of the deceased, in the form of the “collections,” which are the objects of sale in Mr. Grey’s papyrus. The deed was registered 19 days after its execution.