— 44 — 
whatever to the mode o£ procédure iii the 21st dynasty, to offer 
any satisfactory interprétation o£ this passage, unless the word 
"opening" be used for apertin-es other tliau those artificially 
made. 
When the body was placed in the sait bath it would have oiily 
the opening in the le£t flank and the " seven doors o£ the head," 
i.e.,the statutory eight. When it came ont o£ the bath an inci- 
sion would be made £or stuffing the back, one in each shoulder 
£or the arms, each leg would be tunnelled £rom the abdomen— in 
ail five new incisions. Thèse, together with the £our " à la poitrine" 
— whatever thèse may be, perhaps neck, the two Ijreasts and some 
other o£ the varied openings known to have been made — would 
make up the nine secondary apertures completing the statutory 
seventeen. Now that philologists have a more accurate and 
intimate acquaintance with the ancientEgyptian scripts thanBrugsch 
could have had £orty years ago, it is possible that a new transla- 
tion might clear up some o£ the obscurity in thèse renderings. 
So £ar as we are aware no évidence o£ any such manipulations as 
this papyrus hints at were practised at the time (about 200 years 
B. C.) when it was written. But at présent it is impossible to 
say whether the statements contained in the Rhind papyrus are 
mereh' the traditional report o£ a practise long extinct or on the 
other hand whether they might not be an account o£ opérations 
sometimes employed in Ptolemaic times, which may or may not 
be identical with those resorted to by embalmers in the time o£ the 
21st dynasty. 
The ancient Egyptians were always regarded by visitors o£ 
£oreign nationality as a people o£ strange customs ; but none o£ 
their practices could have been considered so extraordinarily bizarre 
as that which £orms the subject o£ the £oregoing account. 
That a people strongly imbued with the belie£ in a future Hfe 
or exen those who, not having such a belie£, had an intense 
