363 
soul upon its return should find its former residence well and 
sacredly preserved. “ 0/' cries the body by a sublime paro- 
nomasia, “that in the dwelling of the master of life I may 
be reunited to my glorified soul. Do not order the guardians 
of Heaven to destroy me, so as to send away my soul from 
my corpse, and hinder the eye of Horus, who is with thee, 
from preparing may way” (chap, lxxxix.). The vignette to 
this chapter is one of the most usual in Egyptian hieroglyphy ; 
it represents the embalmed body laid upon a bier, having 
under it the four vases for the eviscerated organs ; at the side 
of the couch stands Anubis, the guardian of the dead, pre- 
paring the body for its revivification, while above flies a 
Fig. 73. The ankh, or crux an sat a, from the very earliest periods the hieroglyph for 
life, originally supposed to have been an earring.* 
human-headed bird, having in one talon the ankh (fig. 73), or 
tau cross, and in the other a mast and expanded sail, the 
ideographs for “breath” and life respectively. 
29. The deceased traverses next the dwelling of Thoth, who 
presents him with a roll containing further instructions for 
his safe progress, and fresh lessons of the heavenly knowledge 
he is soon to require (chap. xc.). Armed with these, the Osirian 
arrives on the banks of the subterranean river, separating him 
from the Elysian fields of Amenti; but there a new danger 
awaits him. A false boatman, the emissary of the Typhonic 
Powers (in this instance distinct from Apophis), lays wait for 
him on his way, and endeavours by deceitful words to get him 
into his boat, so as to mislead, and take him to the east instead 
of to the west (chap, xciii.), his proper destination, the shore 
where he ought to land and rejoin the sun of the lower world. 
Fortified by his previous instructions, the Osirian again escapes 
this subtle danger ; he remarks the perfidy of the false mes- 
senger, and repulses him with bitter reproaches. At last he 
meets the right vessel to conduct him to his destination (chaps, 
xcvii., xcviii.) ; and now in sight of the true boat; over the 
unknown and fathomless river, he declares that he is prepared 
“ to pass from earth to heaven, to go along to the ever tran- 
quil gods, when they go to cut the Apophis.” “ I,” he con- 
* From its sign also being the determinative hieroglyphic of everything 
pertaining to the ear. 
