Notices respecting New Books. 63 



divine honours might be received by tlie deceased ; Amibis and the 

 goddess Netpe are implored to grant him participation in the nature 

 of Osiris ; and the same goddess is besought that he may receive 

 sacrifice. The goddesses Nephthys and Tafnet are supplicated to 

 bestow upon him the ensigns called Bathmi, which are borne by 

 Kebh-Sniv, one of the ministering spirits of Osiris, and all the other 

 blessings, or benefits, of a minister of that deity. 



After thus deciphering these inscriptions and the symbols which 

 they accompany, Mr. Osburn proceeds to explain those which denote 

 the proper name, and rank, and occupation of the embalmed person. 

 The researches of Dr. Young, confirmed by those of M. Champol- 

 lion, enable him to do this with considerable facility and certainty. 

 The name is repeated fifty times upon the coffin, with a single va- 

 riation only in the characters expressing it; but the groups denoting 

 the rank and occupation of the deceased differ totally in different 

 prayers. It appears from the whole, that the person whose em- 

 balmed body is now deposited in the Leeds Museum, was Natsif- 

 AMON, incense-bearer and scribe of the shrine of the god Man- 

 doure, and also scribe (or clerk) of the provender of the sacred 

 bulls in the temple of Anion- Ra at Thebes. 



Mr. Osburn terminates his portion of the work with an account of 

 the hieroglyphics on the ornament of red leather found on the head 

 of the mummy. The data contained in M. Champollion's works, 

 applied to the devices on this ornament, show that they express the 

 name of the monarch during whose reign Natsif-amon died and was 

 embalmed. This monarch was llemesses V., (the father of Sethos- 

 Remesses, or Sesostris,) whose reign, according to the chronological 

 calculations of M. Champollion-Figeac, commenced in the year 

 1493 B.C. and lasted nineteen years and six months. The date of 

 the mummy is therefore carried back nearly 3300 years from the 

 present time. 



The first article in the Appendix is Mr. George's chemical exami- 



a conversion to that state of mind in which man is regarded to bear a finite 

 analogical resemblance to the Divine character. 



The Egyptians, however, as Dr. Young has shown, believed that the de- 

 parted spirits of just persons became t\\\m\t\ei tticmsclvcs ; an example of 

 wiiich belief is afforded by the inscriptions on the nuimmy-case described 

 by Mr. Osburn, and mentioned in the text above, in which various pre-ex- 

 istent deities are supplicated for blessings which necessarily involve the re- 

 ception of the deceased into co-e(juality of nature with themselves. Docs it 

 notappear, therefore, that the sense of the hieroglyphic group in question can 

 only be correctly expressed liy the term apol/icosis or deification? 



This deification, as is well known to the cultivators of Egyptian literature, 

 was not to be a participation in the divine nature, such as it was supposed 

 to be possessed by all the original or prc-existcnt gods indifferently, but an 

 admission, specifically, to the nature of Osiris. Willi the previous knowledge 

 of this circinnstanci,', Mr. Osburn's remarks on the hierogly|)hic group IIoRT 

 seem to afford the means of obtaining some definite ideas of the n)ytho- 

 logical process by wliicli this apotheosis was imagined to be effected. But 

 ns this subject is foreign to tiie design of the present article, and would re- 

 quire a detailed ex[)lanation, we nuist reserve it for another place. 



nation 



