about seventy days (ver. 3), usually ended together with the process of mummification, but which, in the instance of the patriarch, exceeded it by thirty days. 4. The body, after having been enclosed in a case of wood or stone (ver. 26), was then either deposited in the family vaults (ver. 13), or placed in a sepulchral chamber of the house of the nearest relative (ver. 26).

If we now turn to the account of Herodotus on the operations of embalming (ii. 86-88), and endeavour to combine with it some observations of Diodorus Siculus (i. 91), we may thus briefly delineate the three different methods of mummification described by both authors.

I. If the most expensive mode, estimated at one talent of silver, or about £250, was employed, the brain was first taken out through the nostrils, partly with an iron (or bronze) hook, and partly by the infusion of drugs; then an appointed dissector made, with a sharp Ethiopian stone, a deep incision (generally about five inches long) in the left side, at a part before marked out by a scribe: but having scarcely performed this operation, he hastily fled, persecuted by those present with stones and imprecations, as one who was guilty of the heinous crime of violently mutilating the body of a fellow-man. Then one of the embalmers, holy men, who lived in the society of the priests, and enjoyed unreserved access to the temples, extracted through the incision all intestines, except the kidneys and the heart; every part of the viscera was spiced, rinsed with palm-wine, and sprinkled with pounded perfumes. The body was next filled with pure myrrh, cassia, and other aromatics, with the exception of frankincense; sewed up; and steeped in natrum

during seventy days, after the expiration of which period it was washed, and wrapped in bandages of linen cloth covered with gum. By this procedure, all the parts of the body, even the hair of the eye-brows and eye-lids, were admirably preserved; and the very features of the countenance remained unaltered.

II. The cost of the second mode of embalming amounted to twenty minæ, or about £81. No incision was made, nor were the bowels taken out; but the body was, by means of syringes, filled with oil of cedar at the abdomen, and steeped in natrum for seventy days. When the oil was let out, the intestines and vitals came out in a state of dissolution, while the natrum consumed the flesh; so that nothing of the body remained except the skin and the bones: and this skeleton was returned to the relatives of the deceased.-The possibility of an injection, as here described, without the aid of incisions, has been doubted; and, in some cases, incisions have indeed been observed near the rectum.

III. A third and very cheap method, employed for the poorer classes, consisted merely in thoroughly rinsing the abdomen with syrmæa, a purgative liquor (perhaps composed of an infusion of senna and cassia), and then steeping the body in natrum for the usual seventy days.

According to Herodotus, then, the mummification lasted, in every case, seventy days; and the same fact may be derived from the text of Diodorus. And yet our text remarks clearly, "and forty days were completed for him; for so many days are completed in embalming” (ver. 3). Are we, under these circumstances, compelled here to suppose an inaccurate or arbitrary statement? We believe that the study of Egyptian mummies

does not sanction such conclusion. It is certain, that the modes of embalming varied very considerably in different periods and in the several districts of Egypt. The accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus are so obviously divergent in essential points, that they must be held to describe perfectly distinct ways of mummification. While, according to the former, the sprinkling of the body and the filling of the interior seem to be the work of one day, after which the corpse having been sewed up was laid in natrum for seventy days, that" the flesh might be dissolved"; the latter historian states that during the whole period ointments and perfumes were applied, while he does not at all mention the steeping in natrum, by no means an unimportant and accessory part of the operations.-But not less striking are the contrasts between the descriptions of both historians and the ocular evidence derived from the numerous mummies discovered and examined. Herodotus observes, that the body was sewed up where the incision had been made; but existing mummies show that the cut surfaces were brought together by simple apposition. According to Herodotus, all the bowels were taken out; according to Diodorus, the kidneys and the heart were left; while many discovered specimens teach us that the entrails, after having been washed with palm-wine and sprinkled with aromatics, were replaced into the cavity of the body, either entire, or rolled up in three or four distinct portions, and enclosed in bandages. According to Diodorus, the corpse was, by the embalmers, first laid on the ground; but on the mummy cases and on numerous papyri, we find it invariably on a table, furnished with a lion's

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head. According to the historian of Halicarnassus, the mummies were placed erect against the wall; but in the mummy-pits visited by modern travellers, they are generally seen lying in regular horizontal rows, or sunk into a cement. pears from Herodotus, that the ventral incision was applied in the most expensive process only; while it is found in mummies not enclosed in sarcophagi, and is, on the other hand, wanting in many prepared in the most costly style. In some specimens, the cavity of the body is filled up with asphaltum; in others, with the ashes of sandal-, cedar-, and other wood, with resinous matters, salt, myrrh, or argillaceous earth, and in others not at all. The cuticle is, in many mummies, carefully removed, in which operation great precaution was taken not to disturb any of the nails; and yet neither Herodotus nor Diodorus allude to this curious usage. The poor were not embalmed in any of the methods described by the historians, but were simply laid upon beds of charcoal, wrapped round with clothes, and covered with a mat, upon which sand, seven or eight feet high, was heaped. If we consider these differences, and the many others which will be apparent from later remarks, we cannot hesitate to accede to the result obtained by modern researches, that "in no case the observations of Herodotus are strictly true, though nothing has been described by him, that has not in some instance or other been detected." A classification of the mummies is indeed impossible. The only division of practical value which they admit is into mummies with and without the ventral incision: the former, if preserved by balsamic matter, have the features, teeth, and hair com

pletely uninjured, are dry, light, and easily broken, emit a strong aromatic smell when thrown upon hot coals; or if prepared by natrum, have the skin hard and elastic, resembling parchment, the countenance a little altered, and the hair considerably impaired: the latter, if salted and covered with pissasphaltum (and this is the class of mummies most frequently found), are not recognisable, black, dry, heavy, and of disagreeable odour; or if simply salted and dried, have the features destroyed, the hair wholly wanting, the bones white like those of a skeleton, and are, in fact, the worst as regards preservation. Hence it is as superfluous, as it is impossible, to try a conciliation between the forty days of Genesis and the seventy of Herodotus; certainly the attempts hitherto made to effect that accordance, have been signally unsuccessful: though the author may possibly have considered a more simple and less extended mode of embalming sufficient in the case of Jacob, whose mummification was not grounded on the superstition that the existence of the soul depends on the preservation of the body; while he naturally did not wish to curtail the usual seventy days of mourning in honour of the revered patriarch.

We conclude with a few additional remarks in connection with the art of embalming. The possibility, long questioned, of drawing out the brains through the nostrils, has now been fully demonstrated. In some cases, the nose remained entirely unhurt, though in some it was broken or destroyed. The brain was sometimes replaced with bituminous and resinous matter, or with spices in a state of coarse powder; and sometimes the apertures of the nostrils and

part of the cavity of the skull were filled with cloth or linen, in one instance, nine yards long, but of very fine texture.Various kinds of insects and pupae have been found in the skull, otherwise totally empty. Yet in some cases, though the body was very carefully mummified, the brain was not removed.-Beneath the embalming table were placed four vases, the covers of which were respectively provided with the head of a man, a jackal, a hawk, and a cynocephalus, representing the four genii of the lower world.-The Ethiopian stone with which the incision was made, is the Ethiopian basalt, extremely hard and capable of a very keen edge. Over the incision, the eye of Osiris was represented, since it was believed that the soul of the dead, if found virtuous, became again a part of the great god from whom it had emanated. -The bowels were, according to Porphyry enclosed in a chest (or in vases of baked clay or alabaster), and sunk into the Nile, with prayers to the Sun, who was entreated to receive the soul of the deceased into the regions of the gods, and to impute all his transgressions not to the wickedness of his heart, but to the contents of the chest: but this custom has not unreasonably been questioned as implying a pollution of the holy river, and an insult to the dead.-The mummies, even those which have not the ventral incision, were frequently gilded on the nails of the fingers and toes, and sometimes on the eye-lids, the lips, and the face, the hands and the feet. Leaves of gold have been found on the forehead, the eyes, the tongue, and the nose, and in some instances, on the whole body; while in others, the head is adorned with an artificial crown of olive in copper gilt.

Not a few of these mummies may be those of Greeks who died in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs or the Ptolemies; since some bear Greek inscriptions, and the custom of wreathing the illustrious dead prevailed among the Hellenes. Nor was the usage of wrapping the body in sheets of gold unknown to them; the corpse of Alexander the Great was thus brought from Asia in a kind of chase-work so closely applied to the skin that even the expression of the countenance was preserved; and it was further protected by another veil of the same precious metal. Gold sheets of considerable weight and value have also been discovered in the graves of northern tribes, on the banks of the Volga, the Irtish, and the Ob. One of the Ptolemies substituted a covering of glass for that of gold, by a contrivance of most surprising skill.--Sometimes the nails of the fingers and toes, the palms and soles, seem to have been stained scarlet with a substance like henna, consisting of the leaves of the shrub Tamarhenna, or of Lawsonia, dried, powdered, and formed into a paste.-The body was always extended, and the head erect; but the arms are found in some cases lying closely along the sides of the body, in others crossed over the breast; while in others, one arm is placed in the former, and the other in the latter position. There is no reason to doubt the correctness of the order of the operations as stated by Herodotus, and. to suppose that the steeping in natrum preceded the application of the aromatics. The description of the Greek historian does not less satisfactorily than the alleged agency of a great degree of heat, mentioned by no ancient author, account for the fact that "the resinous and aromatic

substances penetrated even into the innermost structure of the bones."-Hence mummy was much used as a drug in the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth centuries, in cases of bruises and wounds, and the Arabs still apply mummy powder, mixed with butter, as a favourite remedy for contusions. The bandages were never of woollen stuffs, because they are apt to harbour vermin; they were, even in the mummies of the poorest individual, like the robes of the priests, usually of linen, and seldom of cotton, a fact which has been ascertained by exact microscopic examination; those nearest to the body were of the coarsest kind; they were generally dipped in an antiseptic fluid, either cedria or some other vegetable preparation; many are furnished with hieroglyphics, expressing the name and profession of the deceased, or containing his praise in verses; some bear enchorial characters with representations of the lower world; and some have names in Greek letters. They were variously tinged; sometimes they had a blue border, or a fringe terminating in knots; some contained napkins so perfectly preserved as to be still fit for use; others included garments which had been worn and mended, with embroidered initials; or artificial and most intricate wreaths, consisting of two garlands with red berries and the petals of the lotus; or curious leathern fingers, perhaps intended as amulets. After the first or outer layer of the bandages were found idols in agate, jasper, and other stones, representing Isis, Apis, Horus, or frogs, and arranged as collars; or necklaces of gold,coral, lapis lazuli, or of pearls in enamelled glass; further, the four genii of the Amenti and other amulets in wax gilt; rings and ear-rings,

spangles in the plaited hair, girdles in gold, bracelets in fine pearls and precious stones, metallic mirrors under the head, and especially scarabaei of very various stones, on tablets in the form of an Egyptian temple, provided with the figures of Isis and Nephytis, and covered with hieroglyphics, in which case they were placed on the chest or beneath the eyes of the mummies, to indicate the protecting influence of the deity. Though some mummies were not bandaged at all, but only covered with a mat, the quantity of bandages employed in others is extraordinary; they are often folded twenty to thirty times round the body, in some cases they consist of not less than a thousand ells, up to a yard in breadth, and weigh thirty pounds and upwards. But the texture is occasionally as fine as muslin, the "woven air," the admiration of the ancient world-The bandages were most neatly and closely applied by means of compresses and rollers in every possible shape and position, chiefly with the view of effectually excluding the air.-In mummies of distinguished personages, the arms and legs were bandaged separately; strips of red and white linen were intermixed; the feet provided with sandals of painted leather, the arms and wrists with bracelets, and sometimes the face, the hands, and feet, with masks. The eyes and eyebrows are found of enamel. Some mummies are varnished over with a dark leather colour, appearing like a "uniform coat of mail"; some bear portraits of the deceased, not unskilfully executed, upon a thin plate of cedar wood.-Then the corpse was, in many, but by no means in all, instances, placed into a mummy-case. First, a cartonage, consisting of many layers of linen cemented together, plastered with lime on the inside, and hence resembling pasteboard, but of astonishing durability, was made to fit exactly the

shape of the body; it was sewed up at the back, and beautifully painted and ornamented with numerous subjects, as the principal gods, especially of the lower world, holding judgment over the dead, sacred arks, and boats; the face, often covered with thin gold-leaf, was perhaps intended to resemble that of the deceased; the eyes were enamelled; the hair carefully imitated was decked with gold or other ornaments; and a net-work of coloured beads spread over the breast or the whole body. The outer case, though sometimes employed without the cartonage, was either of wood, generally of the sycamore, deal, or cedar (symbolical of eternity), richly painted, or, less frequently, of basalt, granite, slate, limestone, or red earthenware, while the alleged sarcophagus of Alexander the Great and the socalled "Lover's Fountain," both preserved in the British Museum, are of breccia. When of wood, the case was either of oblong shape, with curved or pointed lid, on which sometimes the figure of the deceased was represented in relief; or it had the form of the mummied body, with a winged scarabæus or globe, a hawk or a ramheaded vulture.-The small number of mummies of children hitherto found has justly caused surprise, and can only be accounted for by the supposition that the bodies of infants were deposited in separate pits, none of which have as yet been discovered.-Mummification was customary till the fifth century of the Christian era; but from that time it fell gradually into disuse. The modern Egyptians wash their dead thoroughly in water in which leaves of the lote-tree have been boiled, and use in that operation the fibres of the palmtree; stop up with cotton every aperture, as the nostrils and ears; shave the body and remove all hair; sprinkle the corpse with a mixture of water, pounded camphor, dried