CHAP. XVI. THE TNTESTINES, HOW DISPOSED OF. 463 



observes that "they forbade the body to be burnt, 

 because they looked upon fire as a savage beast, 

 devouring all that it can lay hold of, and dying 

 itself after it is satiated, together with the object 

 of its prey ; and that being forbidden by their laws 

 to suffer any animal to live upon a dead body, they 

 embahned it as a protection against worms." This 

 at least has more appearance of probability : and 

 in the same fear of engendering these originated 

 the prohibition against enveloping a corpse in 

 woollen cloths. * That the bandages were of linen 

 has already been shown t; and the prejudice in 

 favour of that quality of stuff extended even to 

 the wrappers used for enveloping the small wooden 

 figures deposited in the tombs, which were seldom 

 if ever allowed to be of cotton, and apparently in 

 no instance of woollen texture. 



Herodotus fails to inform us what became of 

 the intestines after they had been removed from 

 the body of those embalmed according to the first 

 process ; but the discoveries made in the tombs 

 clear up this important point, and enable us to 

 correct the improbable account given by Por- 

 phyry. The latter writer sayst, " When the bodies 

 of persons of distinction were embalmed, they took 

 out the intestines and put them into a vessel, over 

 which (after some other rites had been performed 

 for the dead) one of the embahners pronounced 

 an invocation to the Sun in behalf of the deceased. 



* Vide Yoh III. p. 114.; and Vol.1, p. 2§0. 



t Vol. III. p. 115. 



j Porphyr. de Abbtin. iv. 10. 



