276 THE HOLY LAND. 
CHAP.l that, when Joseph died', "they embalmed him, 
^ - -y— ' " ^ and he was put ' \v rjj 2o^&;' in Egypt;'" that is 
to say, in one of those immense mono-lithal 
receptacles to which alone the Antients applied 
the name of lOPOI : they were appropriated 
solely to the burial of men of princely rank ; 
and their existence, after the expiration of 
three thousand years, is indisputably proved, by 
the appearance of one of them in the principal 
Pyramid oi^GYVT. Therefore, when our English 
Translators render the Hehreiv or the Greek 
appellation of such a receptacle by our word 
coffin, necessarily associating ideas of a perish- 
able box or chest with the name they use, it is 
not surprising to find it stated by Harmer, in 
his Observations on Scripture, as an extra- 
ordinary fact, that the remains of distinguished 
persons in the East were honoured with a coffin, 
as a mark of their rank; whereas, says he", 
" ivith us, the poorest people have their coffins ;" or 
that other authors should deride, and consider 
as preposterous, the traditions mentioned by 
Jewish Rabbins, which, at this distance of time. 
(1) Gen. L. 26. In the English Version, tbe words are, " He was 
put in a ecffiTi." t 
(2) See Harmer' s ObservatioQS on Scripture, vol. III. p. 69, 70. 
Lornl. 1808. 
