770 



Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie 



[June 



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theory, according to which the soul or ha fluttered about in and out of 

 the tomb as a human-headed bird ; the spiritual body or Jca also 

 coming out of the tomb and wandering about. This soul and ghost 

 needed sustenance, and were fed by the tree goddess, who dwelt in 

 the thick sycamores which overshadowed the cemeteries. This 

 theory more probably belonged to the earliest negroid inhabitants of 

 Egypt. 



Secondly, there was the Osiris theory, according to which the 

 deceased went to the elysian kingdom of Osiris, and there ploughed 

 and sowed and reaped and threshed the heavenly corn. This may 

 probably belong to the Libyan stratum. Thirdly, there was the Solar 

 theory, according to which the soul went to join the company of 

 the gods in the boat of the sun-god Ra, which sailed daily across 



the waters above the firmament, or 

 heavenly ocean. This seems due to 

 Mesopotamian influence, to which the 

 l)egiDuings of hieroglyphs are also to 

 be attributed. Fourthly, there is the 

 mummy theory, according to which the 

 body must be imperishably preserved 

 for ages until reunited to the soul. 

 This was perhaps due to the Red Sea 

 invaders of Phoenician kinship. 



Now all these theories were mixed 

 together throughout historical times, 

 and combined as best they might be, 

 though each is mutually destructive of 

 all the others if logically carried out. 

 The most usual theories with which we 

 have to deal in considering the tombs 

 are the first and last combined, — the 

 ha-hird of the soul, supposed to fly in 

 and out of the grave, the ha or spiritual 

 body to come out in search of food, 

 and the mummy all the time lying inert 

 in the sepulchre. Thus we see it on 

 a papyrus, where the &a-bird is flying 

 down the pit from the door of the 

 tomb, bearing food and drink to the 

 mummy lying below. In one of the 

 rock-cut tombs of Deshasheh there is a beautiful provision for such 

 visits. The well-shaft was flagged over with slabs in the chamber 

 of offerings, but a little channel in the rock gave place for the ha to 

 pass from the well into the upper chamber where the statues were 

 placed, which it desired to visit and inhabit. And another little 

 channel opened from the statue-chamber out to the oj^en air on the 

 hill top, so that the ha and Jca could thus go in and out to visit 

 both the tomb and the outer world. Any one who has seen the lar^^e 



¥ 



Fig. 1. — Section of tomb, from a 

 papyrus, showing door above, 

 •well-shaft with ba flying down, 

 and muramy in chamber w^ith 

 ofterings below. 



