Having taken out the brains and bowels, the body was anointed with oil, and deposited in nitre for a cer tain time. Then the cavities were fulled, and the whole perfumed with aromatic drugs; and, being wrapped up with fillets of many folds, and the face covered, but so as to retain its natural shape, the whole was var nished to defend it from the air. In this situation it was put into an open coffin of sycamore wood, or a kind of pasteboard, and carefully painted. Bodies thus pre pared were sometimes deposited in the houses of the dead, but more commonly in the vaults of public build ings, or in excavations hewn out of the rock. But nei ther in Egypt, nor in any other part of the East, do coffins appear to have been much in use of old times, and the mummies which are deposited in open coffins, may either be supposed to have been persons of a supe rior rank, or they only have been prepered in a later period of the Egyptian history, when changes had been introduced in the manner of preserving the dead.
As a part of the Egyptian code of laws, and a mean of promoting virtuous conduct, M e are told, that an in• quest was held upon the dead ; and according- to their character, so were the ceremonies of their funeued pre scribed. Infamous characters were either not permit ted to be buried at all, but as criminal and r! graded persons are still, among the ruder n itions of the East, cast out into the streets and fields, and left without so among the Egyptians they were denied those sepel h•al rites, t‘ loch were considered as marks of merit
.ind approbation. There was a time in Egypt, when crsons, perhaps those of distinction, were buried in the (...f the lake Moeris ; and if the profane were not permitted to receive such a testimony of respect, it might give rise to the fable of Charon ferrying the souls the departed over the Stvx and Acheron ; and not be ing permitted to receive into his boat the spirits of those whose bodies had been denied the rites of funeral. The present name of the lake is Charon, and thrft, in the Coptic language, signifies a ferryman ; whin gives countenance to the allegorical story which has now been mentioned. If the tomb of Osymancleas was really so magnificent as it has been described,and if the pyramids were intended for the burying place of kings, then there is a further appearance, in these stupendous buildings, of the excessive care which the Egyptians manifested about the state and protection of the dead.
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