4)52 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XVI. 



cleansed and washed them with pahn wine, they 

 cover them with pounded aromatics ; and after- 

 wards filhng the cavity with powder of pure myrrh, 

 cassia, and other fragrant substances, frankincense 

 excepted, they sew it up again. This being done, 

 tliey salt the body, keeping it in natron* during 

 seventy days; to which period they are strictly 

 confined. When the seventy t days are over, 

 they wash the body, and wrap it up entirely in 

 bands of fine linen t smeared on their inner side 

 with gum, which the Egyptians generally use § in- 

 stead of glue. The relations then take away the 

 body, and have a wooden case made in the form 

 of a man, in which they deposit it ; and when 

 fastened up, they keep it in a room in their house, 

 placing it upright against the wall. This is the 

 most costly mode of embalming. 



" For those who choose the middle kind, on ac- 

 count of the expense, they prepare the body as 

 follows. They fill syringes with oil of cedar ||, and 

 inject this into the abdomen, without making any 

 incision or removing the bowels; and taking care 

 that the liquid sliall not escape, they keep it in 

 salt during the specified number of days. The 

 cedar oil is then taken out ; and such is its strength 

 that it brings with it the bowels, and all the in- 



* Not nitre. 



t According to Genesis, 1. .3., only forty days ; which is more proba- 

 ble. Diodorus says '5 upwards of thirty." Tlic seventy or seventy-two, 

 included the whole period of mourning. Jldc infra, p. 454. 459. 



;]; " i."()'roi'0(; /^I'TTirj/r rf\«/(w(T(." Jldc Yo]. II]. p. 115. 



§ On this occasion, Init not lor otlier purposes. J'id/- Vol. HI. p. 173. 



|| Pliny says (xvi. 1 1.), " In Syria cedriuni (e pice) cui tanta vis est, 

 ut in ./Egypto corpora hominum defunctorum co perfusa scrvcntur." 

 (And lib. xxiv. 5.) 



