Photogravure from a Painting by Edwin Long, R. A.
"It was not uncommon to keep the mummies in the house, ... and Damascenius relates that they sometimes introduced them at the table, as though they could enjoy their society.... Many months often elapsed between the ceremony of embalming and the actual burial.... It was during this interval that feasts were held in honor of the dead, to which the friends and relations were invited. On these occasions they dined together and enjoyed the same festivities as when invited to a repast, the guests being in like manner anointed and bedecked with flowers and presented with other tokens of welcome usual at an Egyptian party, and it was principally at this [Greek: nekrodeipnon] that I suppose the introduction of the mummy to have taken place."
"Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians."—Wilkinson.
When the land lightened on the second day,[171] his Majesty went to the quay, and the best of his ships crossed over to the quay of Kakem.[172] The camp of his Majesty was pitched on the south of Kaheni, on the east of Kakem. These kings and nomarchs of the North land, all the chiefs who wore the feather, every vizier, all the chiefs, every royal acquaintance[173] in the West and in the East, and in the islands in the midst, came to see the beauties of his Majesty. The erpa Pediast threw himself on his belly before his Majesty, and said: "Come to Kakem, that thou mayest see the god Khentkhety; that thou mayest khu [?] the goddess Khuyt; that thou mayest offer sacrifices to Horus in his house, consisting of fat bulls, oxen, fowls; that thou mayest enter my house, open my treasury, and load thyself with the things of my father. I will give thee gold unto the limits of thy desire, malachite heaped before thy face, horses many of the best of the stable, the leaders of the stall."
[Piankhy goes to Athribis and worships the local god. Pediast sets the example of giving up his goods without concealment.]
Proceeded his Majesty to the house of Horus Khentkhety, and caused to be offered fat bulls, oxen, ducks, fowl to his father Horus Khentkhety, lord of Kemur. Proceeded his Majesty to the house of the erpa Pediast; he presented him with silver, gold, lapis lazuli, malachite, a great collection of every kind of thing, and stuffs, and royal linen in every count,[174] couches covered with fine linen, frankincense, and unguents in jars, stallions and mares of the leaders of his stable. He [Pediast] cleared himself by the life of God[175] before the face of these kings and great chiefs of the North land:—"Each one of them that hides his horses, that conceals his goods, let him die the death of his father. Thus may it be done to me, whether ye acquit thy humble servant in all things that ye knew of concerning me, or whether ye say I have hidden from his Majesty anything of my father, gold, jewelry, with minerals and ornaments of all kinds, bracelets for the arms, collars for the neck, pendants [?] inlaid with minerals, amulets for every limb, chaplets for the head, rings for the ears, all the apparel of a king, every vessel of royal purification in gold, and every sort of mineral; all these things I have offered before the king, stuffs and clothes in thousands of all the best of my looms. I know by what thou wilt be appeased. Go to the stable, choose thou what thou wilt of all the horses that thou desirest." Then his Majesty did so.
[The princes of Lower Egypt return to their cities to fetch further tribute. A revolt at Mesed is promptly suppressed and the city given as a reward to Pediast.]
Said these kings and nomarchs before his Majesty, "Let us go to our cities, let us open our treasuries, let us select according to the desire of thy heart, let us bring to thee the best of our stables, the chief of our horses." Then his Majesty did even so. List of their names:—