MUMMY, a name derived from the Persian and Arable word mom, signifying wax ; or even posssibly contracted from the Greek word ansomosa, introduced into use about the 15th century, expressive of an embalmed or dried body, either of a man or animal, preserved, by resinous gums, vets, or salt, and even desiccation, from decay. The Egyptians themselves called such bodies sale ; and the word Gabbera used by St. Augustine (Serm. ccclxi, 12), is probably the hieroglyphic kAeper, or " transformation," a term sometimes applied to the dead. The reason of thus preserving tho body is involved in great obscurity, and its origin can be traced to the very earliest existence of the Egyptians. According to the classical authors, the welfare of the soul and its protection from the palingenesia, or transmigration, depended on the preservation of the body to which it returned after the accom plishment of its cycle of existence of 3000 or 10,000 years. (Scrvius ad VirgiL sEn., iii. 67.) The Egyptians had also great horror of the body being devoured by insects, or burnt by fire. It has been also conjectured that physical reasons may have introduced the custom, it being impossible to bury the dead in an alluvial soil annually flooded, or deposit them unetnbalmed in bills adjacent to cities, loading the air with infectious vapours. (Rosellini, ' Mon. Civ,, iii. p. 310 ; Caa siodoreus Coll.,' 15, c. 3.) The hieroglyphical inscriptions throw some light upon Egyptian notions, showing that it was an object of solicitude that the soul should depart from earth, and that the body should remain or endure in its sepulchre. According to the sepulchral ritual (Lepsius, Todtenbuch,' taf. xxxiii., c. 80), the soul revisited the mummy, and if this waked or decayed the son{ immediately transmigrated. (Lepsius ' Todt; taf.Lvxv., c. 154.) In the moral nature of man, the hieroglyphical legends assert that the soul is the good and immortal principle, while the body is the bad and perishable (Rosellini,' Mon. Civ.; iii., p. 330); but every care was taken that physical means could devise, or theological ingenuity invent, to prevent the mortal frame from being destroyed. The corpse was embalmed after the model of that of Osiris ; and the invention of the art was ascribed to his son Anubis, who first performed this office for his father. At I'hila3 the wall paintings represent the embalm. went of Osiris; and other paintings in the tombs show the embalmers engaged in their occupation, the bodies ready for embalmment, the bandaging of mummies, and the preparation of the funeral equipment. (Rosellini, ' Mon. Civ.,' tay. cxxv.) The following were the rites of this art :—Immediately on the death of a person the relations, male and female, of the deceased raised throughout the city the funeral The body, if a female, was retained a few days at home; those of males were delivered at once to the undertakers, called by the Greeks Parasehiser, or " flank incisors," a polluted class, who were excluded from entrance into the temples, and even obliged to reside in the cemeteries or the 'suburbs of the great cities. (Strabo, xvii. 1145 ; blanctlea, 'Apotelesm.: vi. 549.) These paraachisttc had at the time of the
Ptolemies the right of incising the corpses of particular districts, and several papyri attest their contracts or record their litigations. The principal Greek authorities (Herodotus, ii. 85, 87; Diodorus, i. 91) have given rather discrepant accounts of the oflices of the paraschiess and larichculm, but the following appears to have been the mode of embalming in their days. After the corpse had been transported to the establishment of the embalmers, a scribe drew with a reed on the left side, below the ribs, the line of the incision to be made by the pareschista. One of that fraternity then, with an " "Ethiopic stone," A kind of rude knife of flint or obsidian, the necessary wound, and was Immediately pursued by the bystanders with stones and im precation', as if ho had committed a heinous crime. Another of the embalmers, probably one of the chum called larichcafre, or " picklera," then proceeded to draw or remove the entrails and thoracio viscera, leaving only the heart and kidneys its the body. The viscera were soaked with palm wine and aromatic drugs; or, according to Porphyry (' De Abet,' liv. iv., c. 10), the viscera were placed in a vessel and thrown, as the causers of impurity, Into the Nile, after an appropriate prayer. Other embalmers, or taricheutce, proceeded at the same time with the extraction of the brain, which was removed with a crooked instrument of bronze, resembling a catheter, through the in ordei to deprive the body of the soft portions, which were most liable tc decay, and enable them to confine their operations to the preservatior of the skin and muscles. The subsequent operations depended upor the wealth and taste of the friends of the deceased. In the age of Iferodutue three modes of embalming prevailed, models of which wen shoals by the laricheutic in their shops to the relatives of the deceased. In the first process, which cost a talent of silver (about 213/. 158.), used only by the wealthiest classes, certain drugs were introduced nto the vacant cavity of the skull through the nostrils, the belly was :lathed or rinsed with palm wine, and afterwards filled with powdered -esins, cassia, and other aromatic drugs, and then the flank incisions stem up. After the body had been plunged into waren for 70 days, I was wrapped up in linen bandages, anointed with gums which the Egyptians used instead of glue, finally placed in a wooden coffin, and set upright. against the wall, either in the home of the deceased or in a mortuary chapel. For persons of more moderate means a cheaper process, costing only 20 mime (811. 5s.), was employed ; the brain was apparently removed, but the paraschisica was not called in to snake the flank incision, the viscera being injected with oil of cedar, and the body steeped in natron for 70 days, after which the viscera came away, and the skin and bones only remained. The third process cost a trifling sum, not mentioned, and was used only by the poorer awes ; the body was washed with myrrh, and salted for 70 days. (Herod., ii. 87.) Diodorus, indeed, makes the period only about 30 days, but the longer period seems more correct.