PYRAMIDS OF SACCARA. 227 
sons were piled one upon another, and the heads chap. 
of the family set upright in the niches." The s_..^-.,- 
suggestion is borrowed from Maillet, who men- 
tions " several niches," wherein the bodies " des 
mailres de lafamiUe' were placed ^ All this is 
very easily said; and it is all without proof. 
The fact is, that no traveller, as far as we can 
learn, ever did succeed in observing the posi- 
tion of a mummy within its crypt\ The Arabs, 
if they can avoid it, will suffer no one to behold 
what the French^ writers call a virgin mummy. 
(6) D^scr. de VEgypte, torn, II. p. 21. u la Haye, 1740. 
(7) If any traveller could have succeeded in making observation to 
this efFoct, it would have been Mr. TV. Hamilton, during' his travels 
in Upper Egypt. In reply to the author's inquiry upon this subject, 
he says, ' I never was in a situation to see mummies in a constructed 
catacomb, or crypt ; but a few miles above Philce, I assisted at the 
opening of a common grave, full of mummies, lying upon their backs: 
these were covered with the common sand of the desert. The sculp- 
tures in the Egyptian temples, which frequently represent mourners 
around a mummy, always place the latter in a horizontal posture." The 
testimony of one of Mr. Hamilton's fellow travellers at Saccara also 
confirms what has been said of the difficulty of making these observa- 
tions. " We did not see the mummies of human bodies : those pits 
which the Arabs generally shew are filled up with sand, interspersed 
with bones, and not at all interesting to examine. The places in 
which tliere are perfect mummies are covered over with palm- 
branches and sand, with a view to conceal their situation. There is a 
sort of mummy trade among the Arabs; and jou are much more 
likely to procure one at Cairo than at Saccaua." Squire's MS. 
Journal. 
(8) See Denon, vol. H. p. 224. Vansleh (Relation d'Egypte, p. 149. 
Par. 1667) has a different expression, " Un puils vierge." 
q2 
