of this bird have been met with at Sakkara, Thebes, and Hermopolis.

The BEN OF BENNOU has been supposed by some to be the Nycticorax, and by others the Ardea bubulcus. It occurs in one of the chapters of the Ritual, and Osiris is also met with having the head of this bird. In one chapter the deceased steers it to Abydos, with Osiris and Ra, to the mystic region of Tattou, in the boat of the Sun.

The GOOSE was the living representative of Seb, the Egyptian Saturn, on whose head it is found placed. There are several species of this bird, each of which has its own name. No representation of it has been found upon the monuments, but it occurs in the Funereal Ritual. Its worship was local.

Of the reptiles the most important are—

The SERPENT, which is employed in the hieroglyphic texts to point out the names of the female Divinities, was at the same time the living emblem of different Goddesses, according to the headdress in which it is attired. It often occurs also on the head-dresses of Kings and other Divinities. Twelve of these reptiles vomiting flame were the guardians of the hours of the day. The Hawée, or Cobra di Capello, is the species which most frequently occurs. Snakes are represented with different heads, as the hawk, the lion, and cat, and occasionally even human-headed.

The SCARABEUs, although often found as the attribute of several other Deities, was generally the emblem of the God Tore, and apparently personified the sun. Different species of the beetle are found, and it occurs with the heads of different animals, and holding in its fore-claws the disk of the sun.

The CROCODILE was the living emblem of the god Sabak, Sevek, or Souchis. It is called in the hieroglyphics, Emsooh, 66 sprung from the egg." Some mystic nations connected it with Time; but its voracity and amphibious nature allied it more certainly with the Deity of destruction and the waters. In the Ritual it is speared as an impure animal. It occurs as a type on the coins of the Ombite and Arsinoite nomes.

The TOAD does not appear among the inscriptions, and the only traces of its worship are the embalmed specimens which have occasionally been found.

The FROG does not appear from the monuments to have been worshipped. It occurs on a lotus sceptre at Philæ, and was probably sacred to Noum, the God of the waters, and Hapimoou, the Nile, or a female frog-headed Deity called Hyk, i. e. the frog. It

was employed in the inscriptions, in its tadpole state, to signify "innumerable." Mr. Birch states that he has also found it after the name of an individual. Weights were made of its shape.

The SCORPION is the living emblem of Selk, and is often found in the inscriptions and texts.

The SPHINX, which is a combination of the human or animal head joined to the body of a lion or ram, bears various names according to the combination-as, for example, andro-sphinxes, crio-sphinxes. The sphinxes of the Egyptians were for the most part Kings under a mythic form. Deities are, however, represented in this way. Female sphinxes, with the body of a lioness and with wings, are the prototype of the Theban monster. The enormous sphinx in front of the second pyramid was one of the wonders of the world.

There are three species of FISH of common occurrence on the nionuments, the Lepidotus, the Silurus, and the Oxyrrhyncus. The first is supposed to be the Cyprinus lepidotus, a species of carp, but the arrangement of the dorsal and ventral fins differs from any fish of the Nile yet published. Formerly it was assigned to the perch tribe. It must have been worshipped, as it occurs in bronze, but it is not certain to what Deity it was sacred. The second, the Silurus or Bayad, was apparently sacred to Isis, considerable numbers of this fish having been found embalmed in the neighbourhood of Thebes. Its appearance on the paintings is rather rare. Its hieroglyphical name is unknown, as well as the peculiar function which it represented. The third, or Oxyrrhyncus, a species of pike, was considered Sacred, according to some Egyptian myths, as having devoured some portion of the body of Osiris. It is employed in the hieroglyphical texts as a Phonetic symbol, to denote the body. It was sacred to Athor. There was a Nome which bore the name of Oxyrrhyncitis.

Besides the animals, &c., of which we have given the above descriptions, several others will be found in the cases above specified, as the horse, the dog, the gazelle, the latus or binni fish, and the hippopotamus. We have not, however, thought it necessary to call any especial attention to these forms in this place, while to some of them we have already alluded elsewhere.

II. SEPULCHRAL REMAINS, MUMMIES, &c.

The Museum has a good collection of mummies, whether of men or animals, the greater part of the former being arranged down the centre of the Egyptian Room. Those of human beings in Cases

65-76 and 46-50; those of animals in Cases 52-58, together with a large number of coffins and miscellaneous sepulchral objects, the separate numbers and situations of which shall be given. It may be worth while to notice very briefly some of the facts which are known relatively to the Egyptian system of mummification.

The earliest notice of embalming occurs in the Book of Genesis. When Jacob died, "Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father; and they embalmed Israel. And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed and the Egyptians mourned for him three score and ten days." There can be no doubt that this is a description of the usual practice in the case of persons of high rank. We know that after the ceremony of embalment, Jacob's body was carried to Canaan, accompanied by "all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and the elders of the land of Egypt," and placed in the rock sepulchre which Abraham had purchased at Mamre. We may presume that the body was placed in such a box as we find was used for the embalmed remains of Kings and other distinguished personages, and that Joseph also was embalmed at his death, so that the children of Israel were able to take with them the bones of their great ancestor in compliance with his dying injunctions. These remains we know were finally deposited at Shechem, in the Promised Land, at the end of the Forty Years of Wandering.

Herodotus, the next oldest authority, has given a minute account of the process pursued in embalming, and has classified the different methods according to the relative expense of the process. The first, says he, and the most elaborate, is that reserved for Osiris; the second is of an inferior and cheaper style; the third is very economical. It is not necessary here to give his description at length, but it is enough to say that on the whole it coincides very well with what we now observe.

It does not appear that foreigners resident in Egypt were compelled to be buried after the Egyptian fashion, or allowed, even if willing, to follow it; but whatever person, whether native or foreigner, was slain by a crocodile or drowned in the river, was embalmed by the people of the city within whose precincts the body was thrown up, and then interred in the Sacred Tombs. No one, except the Priests of the Nile, was allowed to touch such corpses. Females of rank were not usually placed in the hands of the embalmers till the third or fourth day after death. It appears also that the occupation of the maker of the mummy cases was distinct from that of the embalmer: and that a large number of mummies were

merely wrapped up in their linen swathings, and were never placed within a wooden covering at all.

Diodorus, who visited Egypt about four centuries later than Herodotus, gives some additional matter, and makes some slight variations in his description.

Modern examinations have confirmed the general truth and accuracy of the notices preserved in the historians, but have at the same time shown that there were other methods which were not known to them, or were not thought of sufficient importance to be indicated, or else may have been introduced at a subsequent period. The preparation of the body for the process of embalment is often represented on papyri and mummy-cases, on which we see pictures of the body stretched out on a table supported by a lion's head and legs. The embalmers, who are painted black, wear jackals' heads, which, as has been suggested, may not improbably have been meant for masks. As we have already remarked, the embalmed entrails were often placed in vases of different substances, bearing the head

fof

Jars for Entrails.

of some Divinity, of a human being, or of the monkey, the fox, the cat, or some other animal. In representations of the embalming process, four vases are constantly observed under the table.

Gilding appears to have been extensively used in the decoration of mummies. It has been observed on all parts of them. Herodotus, ii. 129, states that the embalmed daughter of Mycerinus was placed

in a wooden gilded cow, and that this cow was preserved in the Palace at Sais, where he saw it.

In the cheapest kind of mummification the bodies appear to have simply dried; in some cases, however, they have been filled with bituminous matter, or covered with charcoal. The bodies themselves were wrapped round in rags of coarse cloth, or in mats of reeds and palm-leaves.

The quantity of cloth made use of in swathing the better class of mummies seems to have been immense; in one case it is known that the cloth alone weighed twenty-nine pounds, and was in length 292 yards; in another case it weighed thirty-five pounds and a half, there being over no part of the body less than forty thicknesses of it. The covering outside the swathing-cloth generally consists of a series of narrow bandages wound round the body and limbs and glued together, and of an envelope, generally of coarse cloth, which covered the whole. Both cloth and bandages are generally of a reddish hue, but they have been found white. In some cases separate pieces of cloth, not connected with the bandages, have been found lying beside the body; and in some cases, as especially in those of mummies opened by Belzoni, the bandages are of strips of red and white linen intermixed, and cover the whole body. In the case of those mummies which belonged to the poorer classes, economy was practised in furnishing the mummy with his linen wrappings, a great deal of old cloth being often found about them, and some which has been evidently much worn, and is occasionally darned. On the breast of the deceased was often placed the Sacred beetle, the symbol of Phtah and of the generating power of the world, and the four Deities of the Lower World are placed near it, two on each side. Besides the wrappings of the bodies, it is not unusual to find small wooden or porcelain figures with the mummies. Scarabæi of various kinds of stone, papyri, &c., have been found on the bodies, under the arms and between the legs, bearing hieroglyphical inscriptions, which contain what are presumed to be the names of the persons buried in the mummy-cases. These are often found on the bandages which envelop the mummy. The upper parts of the wooden cases which enclose the mummy were often made in the form of a human head and shoulders, the sex being denoted by the character of the headdress, and by the presence or absence of the beard. The exterior front part of the case, below the bosom, contains sometimes a representation of a seated female figure with outstretched wings.

The actual burial was often deferred for a long time. Mr. Grey found the coffin of a mummy, not, however, made in imitation of