166 Mr. Robert Mond [May 22, 



bad shared some little time the honour of temporary Imrial near the tomb 

 of the god Osiiis. befoie finally being deposited in its underground 

 chamber, a mystery play Avas performed. Even as the great god Osms, 

 after his cruel murder and dismembei-ment by his brother Set. bad been, 

 by the assiduous attentions of his son, the Sun-god Horus, Anubis, the 

 god of the Dead, and of his wife and her sister, the godesses Isis and 

 Nephtis, brought back to life to rule as King of the Dead over the 

 beautiful land of Amenti, the same ceremonies were performed over 

 the mummy by the son, his best friend, the priest and the two 

 professional weeping women, who, adopting the traditional costume, 

 attributed to the gods and goddesses they represented, and repeating 

 the same magic formularies, hoped and believed that the deceased 

 would be enabled by their aid to come to life and enjoy the glories 

 of the kingdom of Osiris. This ceremony would be followed by a 

 funeral feast, partaken of in the presence of the statue of the deceased, 

 at which a harper would extol the deeds of the deceased, and make 

 philosophical reflections on the shortness of life and of fame, extremely 

 similar to tho.-e we are conversant with in the Rubayat of Omar 

 Khayam. The feasts were repeated at regular intervals. 



Besides individuals, speculative undertakers also acquired con- 

 siderable tracts of the cemetery for the burial of the less well-to-do. 

 The cemetery was guarded by a special police force, and inspectors 

 from time to time visited the chapels and recorded their visits on 

 the walls. As their exposed position and accessibility constantly 

 rendered them liable to damage, the) suffered severely from both 

 human and natural causes. The iconoclasts under Amenhotep IV, 

 when he tried to suppress the worship of the god Amen, had 

 the name of x\men and the face of all such whose name included the 

 word Amen carefully destroyed. Others were destroyed through 

 private spite. This risk continues down to the present from either 

 a dismissed employee or someone having a grievance against the 

 authorities or an individual. 



These chapels were frequently re-used by subsequent owners in 

 later epochs, who either enlarged or reduced the size of the chambers, 

 and obliterated the old decorations partly or completely with lime- 

 wash, and had them repainted. 



Again, the Monks of the Thebaid obliterated the graceful figures 

 of the ladies and goddesses with mud- wash, and frequently disfigured 

 the scenes with grotesque figures of animals or similar subjects, and 

 when in later periods the belief in the Ka or spirit had degenerated into 

 a dread of Ghosts, the fellah attem])ted to guard himself against the 

 supposed evil influences by obliterating the nose, eyes, and mouth of 

 the figure and statues he found, even as he does to-day. In a number 

 of cases the courtyards and the entrances to the chapels had been so 

 completely obliterated owing to subsequent excavations of tombs on 

 a higher level, or the collapse of retaining walls, w-hichhad been built 

 for the shoring up of the debris, that their existence was unrecognized, 



