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Egyptian Funerary Customs

The funerary customs of the Egyptians varied very considerably, as was to be expected, during the long course of the national history. In the earliest times there was no attempt at mummification. The body was laid in a shallow trench on its left side with the knees drawn and the hands frequently raised before the face, and was accompanied by objects of use or adornment—the slate palette for face-paint, jars and bowls for food and drink, a clay boat in which to cross the rivers of the other world, and so forth. Somewhat more elaborate was the form, also very early, in which the body was huddled up under a large inverted clay vessel.

The tombs of the Pharaohs of the first dynasties were great chambers, sometimes lined with wood, sometimes with stone, and approached by staircases leading down from the ground-level. Along with the king was buried a mass of household utensils and furniture, while the graves of his servants and courtiers lay around his own tomb. Later, these comparatively humble structures were not deemed sufficient for the glory of the Pharaoh, and with Zeser we have the rise of the Pyramid form of tomb, which reached its greatest development in the Fourth Dynasty.

Around the royal pyramid there clustered in a perfect city of the dead the 'mastaba' tombs of the nobles. The word 'mastaba' means a bench, and is applied to these tombs by the fellahin from their resemblance to the bench which stands outside the door of a native house. The mastaba is a rectangular building whose walls have a slight inward inclination and are crowned by a flat roof—the structure thus somewhat resembling a pyramid whose upper courses have been removed. The real tomb lies beneath this erection at the foot of a deep vertical shaft. This shaft is carried up through the stonework of the mastaba, and on the day of burial the body was let down by it into the chamber at the foot, and the shaft was then filled up. On the east side of the mastaba there was a shallow niche, the 'false door,' by means of which the dead man was supposed to go out and in. Here offerings were made to the departed and prayers were recited on his behalf.

This niche is frequently developed into a small chamber which bears the false door on its inner wall, and in some of the larger mastabas there were several such chambers whose walls were covered with pictures representing the life of the deceased. These chambers were open to the family; but in addition there was generally a smaller room, which was inaccessible. This is the 'serdab,' or cellar, in which was placed the portrait-statue of the dead man, sometimes accompanied by those of his wife and children. The serdab was walled off from the other chambers, but there was frequently an opening left in the partition, through which the deceased might hear the prayers of his family and smell the incense which they had provided.

With the Middle Kingdom, when the seat of government shifted from Memphis to the narrower valley further south, the mastaba was abandoned in favour of the tomb hewn out of the cliffs which border the river. Here we have an open court in front, with a vestibule behind it cut out of the rock, and adorned with pillars. Behind the vestibule lies a pillared chamber for offerings and,' finally, the small chamber containing the portrait-statue of the deceased. The rock-tomb was enormously developed by the great kings of the Empire, whose graves are found in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. A long gallery, gradually sloping downwards, was driven into the rock, and, passing through several chambers, terminated, sometimes several hundred feet from its mouth, in a chamber where the body of the king was laid in his huge stone sarcophagus. The walls of the gallery and chambers were covered with reliefs representing scenes of the underworld. In the case of these royal tombs, the funerary offerings were not made in the actual valley where the tomb lay. The Pharaoh had his great mortuary temple out on the plain, and the services in memory of 'the good god' were conducted there.

With the Pyramid period of the Old Kingdom, the old crouching method of burial was discarded. The body was laid in a natural position on its left side, often with a pillow under its head. It was preserved from decomposition by one or other of the various processes of embalmment in which the Egyptians were such adepts. The viscera were removed and were placed in four jars, known as the 'Canopic' jars. These were supposed to be under the protection of four genii, the 'children of Horus,' Amset, Hapi, Tuamautef, and Qebhsennuf, and they generally bear as lids the heads of the genii, a man, a hawk, an ape, and a jackal. In some instances, as in the case of Queen Tyi, portraits of the deceased person are substituted for the heads of the four children of Horus. In the New Kingdom these genii are responsible for the doing away with a great proportion of the offerings of food and drink which formerly used to be made at the tomb. It was believed that the magical power of the children of Horus would provide against hunger and thirst, and the offerings largely cease.

But not even the four genii were held to be sufficient protection for the dead man. It was believed that in the underworld he would have innumerable dangers to encounter, rivers to cross, serpents to fight against, and all kinds of evil creatures to evade. It was therefore necessary to provide him with defences against these, and also wit means which would secure that he should not be turned back at the gate of the kingdom of the blessed, and that his heart should not be found deficient in the judgment. To provide against these last two contingencies he was furnished with amulets. The danger of his heart proving an inconvenient witness was averted by laying on his breast a large stone scarabaeus beetle, inscribed as follows: '0 heart that I have from my mother! O heart that belongs to my spirit, do not appear against me as witness ... do not contradict me before him who governs the balance ... do not suffer our name to stink . . . tell no lie against me before the god.' The danger of being turned back from the gates of the underworld was provided against by two amulets—a golden model of the sacred pillar of Osiris, and a buckle of red jasper, the emblem of Isis. For all the other dangers which the dead man had to encounter in the spirit-land special amulets were needed, until at last the body was sometimes covered with them as with a suit of armour.

Even the amulets were at length held to be no longer a sufficient protection. It was necessary that the deceased should know words of power which would enable him to triumph over all dangers, and enjoy such privileges as that of changing his shape into that of a phoenix, a crocodile, or a lotus-flower; of uniting his soul again to his body; and of going in and out of the door of his tomb to enjoy the sunlight and the fresh air. A whole literature gradually grew up which was based upon nothing but the express purpose of enabling the dead man to accomplish all these and other similar ends. The chief representative of this literature is the well-known Book of the Dead, often called, but quite misleadingly, the Egyptian Bible. Far from being an adequate representation of Egyptian religious ideas, the Book of the Dead only represents one single aspect of them, and that only in a comparatively late form.