98 
ON MUMMIES. 
[Nature and Art, September 1, 1866. 
Hades, to admit him at the Empyreal gate, and to 
let his soul leave the earth for heaven. The sides 
have generally different sepulchral deities, while 
over the insteps are painted the jackals of Anubis, 
who guarded the paths of the North and South ; 
and the eyes of Horus, emblems of the sun and 
moon. Although mere decorations or plain surfaces 
are often found under the feet, two pictures some- 
times there appear. One represents the sandals of 
the mummy, on which are painted an Asiatic and 
a Negro bound hand and foot, and representing 
the detested foreigners and neighbouring enemies 
of Egypt trodden under the sandals of the dead. 
The other, ecpially common at the period, has a 
bull,— the Apis, bearing the mummy on its back, 
carrying it far away over the hills to the cemetery. 
All these paintings alluded to the deceased as 
another Osiris • for upon his model he was em- 
balmed and encased, and the name of the deceased 
after the 1 2th dynasty, was always preceded by 
that of Osiris as a title. All the funeral cere- 
monies and litanies, in fact, turned upon this 
mystic symbolism, and represented the burial and 
destiny of Osiris himself in the regions of the dead. 
It is not possible to here describe more than the 
normal pictures of the cartonage, for there are 
many varieties of these decorations. Some, in- 
stead of numerous deities, are inscribed with 
extracts from the Ritual of the Dead ; others are 
crowded with figures of deities, enriched with 
gilding upon a deep blue background ; but the 
usual colour of the ground is white, while the 
figures and accessories are in blue, red, black, 
and yellow. 
On the decline of Egypt under the Ptolemies 
and Roman prefects, the decorations declined in 
beauty and character ; the form of the bandages 
not following so nearly the contours of the form, 
and the cartonage being superseded by a linen 
covei'ing of one piece, on which the subject is 
coarsely painted in tempera and various colours, 
such as a light red, green, or pink. There is no 
longer any relief, but, en revanche , there is a greater 
attempt at portraiture, and the features offer 
Greek types. The heads are crowned with wreaths, 
the forms clad often in the peplos or the stole, and 
chiton with purple borders ; while rings, earrings, 
shoes, and bracelets, and the whole costume are 
Greek. In many cases, indeed, some of the Osiris 
type is still preserved, especially the network 
covering of meshes over the body • but the details 
are more Greek ' than Egyptian. The deities are 
still sepulchral ■ and Isis, Nephthys, and the 
jackals of Anubis, are often depicted. At an earlier 
or later date, real portraits, painted in encaustic 
on thin panels of cedar, in chiaroscuro , and of 
considerable merit, are placed over the head, and 
are the only decoration of the mummy. 
As to the inscriptions of this age, new religious 
formulae appear, and present a mixture of Greek 
and Egyptian ideas. The duration of the life of the 
deceased is often recorded ; the sepulchral formula 
disappears, and is replaced by addresses to the 
deceased The hieroglyphs are mere scrawls, and 
the spectator feels that bad Greek is worse than 
good Egyptian art. At this time, especially in 
Thebes, the art had fallen to a low ebb ; but 
some of these painted shrouds appear to have been 
continued till a late period. Two of a male and 
female, at present in the Augusteum at Dresden, 
both in the ornaments of their dress resembling 
the Byzantine dalmatica , and in the other decora- 
tions of their forms are referable to as late a 
date as the 5th century. When the ait finally 
ceased, is not known • but in the days of St. 
Athanasius, about a.d. 325, it was still in exist- 
ence ; and as it was not repugnant to Christian 
doctrines, like the incremation of the Greeks and 
Romans, it probably existed till the Arab invasion 
of Egypt. The bodies thus prepared were called 
by the Egyptians Sahu ; for moom appears to be a 
Persian word, derived from the wax employed for 
the purpose. As no mummies, however, have been 
found with Coptic inscriptions, the art must have 
declined, at the appearance of that writing, which 
was apparently later than the 5tli century a.d. ; 
for the demotic continued in use till the 5th century. 
Along with the mummy were often laid various 
objects ; sometimes the musical instruments and 
arms which the deceased used during life. One of 
the mummies of the Roman period, in the British 
Museum, has a pair of cymbals ; and the splendid 
gold, jewelry, and arms found on that of the Queen 
Aahhetp, of the 18th dynasty, and shown in the 
Great Exhibition of 1862, will illustrate the 
splendid objects deposited with the mummies. 
When the outer covering, whether cartonage or 
painted sheet, was placed on the form, there only 
remained the coffin and sarcophagus to complete 
the funereal adornment. The richness, the beauty, 
the variety of the different coffins are so great, that 
they can only be described in classes. The earliest 
shape, found in the sepulchres of the 4th and Gth 
dynasties at Memphis, and continued till the 11th 
and 12th, was a deep rectangular box, with a fiat 
cover. The sarcophagi — a term to be restricted to 
the outer coffins of stone — were at this period 
always rectangular. These sarcophagi are generally 
of granite, exceedingly simple in their forms, and, 
if sculptured, with only a few architectural orna- 
ments. The monarch who built the Great Pyramid 
had no better sarcophagus than a plain box or 
trough of granite, without a single ornament. The 
functionaries of the succeeding dynasties, who could 
not afford the expense of such costly sarcophagi, 
were deposited in wooden coffins of cedar or syca- 
more, of the same shape. Cedar, which must have 
come from the Lebanon, was too rare and costly to 
be covered entirely with stucco ; and when it was 
used, a deeply-cut line of hieroglyphs round the 
border of the chest and down the lid repeated the 
sepulchral dedications to Osiris the judge, and 
Anubis the preparer of the mummy. The interior 
had always running round the chest a frieze, on 
which were painted, in brilliant colours, the various 
objects of dress and toilet, such as the dagger, shoes, 
cosmetic vases, and washing-utensils of the day, the 
number of which, required or possessed, were duly 
