ANCIENT EGYPT. I4I 



the ka is fashioned in clay ; this idea is further developed in 

 the false door to the tomb for the ka instead of the real one. 

 Professor Maspero thinks that this door, by a process of 

 dwindling the expansion of the inscription, developed into 

 the stele. The double name of a pharaoh is one for the 

 person and the other for the ka. 



The body was prepared for embalmment by the removal of 

 the viscera, which were put into Canopic vases-, and the brain 

 was drawn out through the nose. The body was then filled 

 with spices and aromatic drugs, washed, bandaged, and 

 steeped in natron. There were other and cheaper methods of 

 embalmment for the poorer people. The illumination before 

 you is numbered i6 in the Society's series. 



The Egyptian faith is often spoken of as pantheistic, and 

 justly so in regard to the long roll of divinities inscribed on 

 the temple walls ; but it must be borne in mind that the sun 

 was not looked upon as a god, but as a symbol, or a visible 

 manifestation of the deity. In fact this symboHsm or imagery 

 is really more monumental than esoteric ; for searching the 

 spirit of hieratic literature, of which there is great store, there 

 is comparatively little mention of any save the great creator 

 of the universe and first cause, illustrated by pantheistic 

 imagery in the form of assistant principles or deities, as we 

 have, to some extent, in the Old Testameftt and Revelation. 



The Book of the Dead, peri-en-hru (coming forth by day 

 out of the nether world), descriptive of the trials of the soul 

 after death, is by far the most important, from a religious 

 point of view, of the many papyri that have come down to us, 

 and we have examples of it in great numbers. It is the most 

 ancient book in the world. This record has been preserved 

 inscribed on papyrus rolls, mummy wrappings, ushabti, 

 statues, walls of tombs, and on scarabsei. Probably handed 

 down orally from remote ages, it was committed to writing at 

 a very early period. Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson copied a text 

 in the seventeenth chapter from the sarcophagus of a queen 

 of the eleventh dynasty, about b,c, 3,000, and it seems 



