— 10 — 
Dr. Reisner has recently told me that Canopic Jars have been 
obtained from tombs of the 5th and 6tli dynastic periods, but 
they are always clean and empty. Although these vessels thus 
show no signs of ever having contained viscera the fact that 
Canopic Jars are never known to have been used for any other 
purpose renders it probable that these early jars were intended 
to receive the organs removed from the body. If the organs 
were taken out of the body the most likely reason for such a 
procedure would be the attempt to prevent corruption. Thus 
the slight balance of evidence — indefinite and wholly inconclusive 
though it be — is in favour of some attempt at mummification or 
artificial preservation of the body as early as the 5th dynasty. 
The examination of mummies of the New Empire reveals the 
fact that during the processes of mummification as practised at that 
time the soft tissues of the body (excepting the skin which was 
exposed to the action of the preser\ ative agent) became converted 
into a loose spongy material which was much too soft and too 
small in amount to keep the skin distended : as the result the 
limbs became reduced to little else tlian bones with an ill-fitting 
wrapping of deeply wrinkled skin. This happened not only in 
emaciated persons but to an even greater extent in individuals 
whose bodies were plump and muscular (PI. YIII, figure 1). 
In the 21st dynasty the embalmers endeavoured to remedy 
this defect by stuffing various materials — pieces of linen, sawdust, 
sand, earth and other substances — under the skin so as to distend 
it and mould the form of the body. The great prevalence of 
plundering and the frequent rewrappings of mummies of the 
preceding dynasties that are known to have taken place in the 
reign of the priest-kings may have brought home to the embalmers 
in a manner not so fully appreciated before the imperfection of 
the results (so far as the retention of the form of the body is 
concerned) obtained by their fellow craftsmen of the 18th, 19th 
