PYRAMIDS OF SACCARA. 225 
in embalmed bodies deposited there so many chap. 
ages before. We saw enough, however, to be <- -^- ' 
convinced that an erroneous notion has been 
derived from a passage in Herodotus, which has 
been supposed to relate to the mode of placing 
mummies in these repositories*. It was impos- 
sible that the dead could have been set upright 
upon their feet, for there was not sufficient 
space between the roof of tlie cavern and the 
place where the bodies were laid. From a 
former view of the Soros in the Dj'iza pyramid, and Evidence 
also from the appearance here, it became evi- rizontai 
dent that the position of the corpses in Egyptian hTb^L 
sepulchres was not vertical, but horizontal; and 
that the passage referred to in Herodotus relates 
to the manner in which the bodies were placed, 
not in the catacombs, but in the houses of the 
relatives of deceased persons, after being em- 
balmed. The testimony now given is, more- 
over, confirmed by many other writers. Kircher 
has given an engraved representation, made 
from a view of the Mummy Crypts, by Bural- 
tinus; delineated, as he says, with the utmost 
(2) KaJ xaraKXriiraiTi; cSra, inrav^'i^ovei sv e'x.ftu.art fftiXKiu, ifrifrif 
e^fct «*goj TsTxiv. " Inclusumque ita, reponunt in conclavi loculis 
talibus dicato, statuentes rectum ad parietem." Herodot. Hist. lib. ii- 
e. 86. p. 143. Ed. Falchen. el TVesseling. Jmst. 1763. 
VOL. V. Q 
