442 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIIJ. 



in which he answered to the Mercury of the Greeks 

 in his capacity of Psychopompos, or "usher of 

 souls."* He presided over tombs, and at the final 

 judgment he weiglied the good actions of the 

 deceased in the scales of truth, and was thence 

 styled " director of the weight." He is frequently 

 introduced in the sculptures, standing over a bier 

 on which a corpse is deposited. He seems to super- 

 intend tlie departure of the soul from its earthly 

 envelope, which is indicated by a small bird with 

 a human head and hands, holding the sign of life 

 and a sail, the symbol of transmigration, or of its 

 flight from the body.t This bird is probably the 

 Baeith of Horapollo, which signifies "life and soul ; " 

 and from it may have been derived in later times the 

 complicated figures of the Abraxas. In the group 

 represented in the Plate, it will be observed that 

 the mummy has the beard of a God, or of one 

 deified under the form of Osiris ; and tlie soul has 

 one of a person not yet entered into those regions 

 of eternity, to which it is about to take its flight. 



Anubis may be considered to answer to ^^Death" 

 in a good sense, as the departure of the soul from 

 the body, on its way to a better state, and applied 

 only to mankind ; Death in another sense, as the 

 decease of the animal portion of man, being figured 

 by the Egyptians under a different form, as I have 

 already shown, t It is probably from this his 



* Conf. Horn. Odyss. xiv. 1., and Hor. Od. I. ix. 17. 

 " Tu pias laetis animas reponis 

 Sedibus, virgaque leveni coerces 

 Aurea turbam, superis Deorum 

 Gratus et iniis." 

 f Vide Plate 44. fig. 3. X Supra, p. 432. 



