378 THE EGYPTIAN EMBALMER'S ART. 



The remarkable effects of the combination of intense 

 heat and drought in these regions, in arresting the 

 progress of decomposition of animal tissues, to which 

 we before alluded, are well illustrated in the case 

 of the ancient Egyptian mummies, concerning which 

 we must find space to say a few words. In damp 

 climates of course the conservation of those remains, 

 during thousands of years, would necessarily be impos- 

 sible even were it desirable. The art of embalming, 

 we need hardly say, arose out of the religious belief 

 in the future resurrection of the body, and as the body 

 was to live again it followed as a logical sequence that 

 no pains could be esteemed to be too great which could 

 contribute to preserve these frail remnants of mortality 

 both so as to ensure their unbroken rest and their 

 immunity from decay and there can be no doubt that it 

 is to these selfsame causes that we owe the creation of 

 those enormous structures, the Pyramids, as well as most 

 of the other great works of Egyptian antiquity, which date 

 from what at present seems to be the da\vn of history. 



The tremendous waste of human life that the execu- 

 tion of these gigantic works, under a system of forced 

 labour, involved, is a matter of history. The living 

 being sacrificed to the dead in this wholesale manner, 

 so greatly excited the abhorrence of the Mohammedans, 

 that to their honour be it said, they have to this day 

 always designated the pyramids as "ElHardm " signify- 

 ing in Arabic "The Forbidden" or "The offence against 

 religion" for it may now be accepted as a matter of 

 ascertained fact that the Pyramids were created "as 

 tombs, and nothing but tombs. " * The investigations 



* See Murray's Handbook for Egypt, 8th Edit. 1891, p. 235. 



