CHAPTER V.

THE RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALITY.

In perusing the literature of the ancient Egyptians one
of the first things which forces itself upon the mind of
the reader is the frequency of allusions to the future
life oi to things which appertain thereto. The writers
of the various religious and other works, belonging to
all periods of Egyptian history, which have come down
to us, tacitly assume throughout that those who once
have lived in this world have “ renewed” their life in that
which is beyond the grave, and that they still live and
will live until time shall be no more. The Egyptian
belief in the existence of Almighty God is old, so old
that we must seek for its beginnings in pre-dynastic
times , but the belief in a future life is very much v'
older, and its beginnings must be as old, at least, as the
oldest human remains which have been found in Egypt.

To attempt to measure by years the remoteness of
the period when these were committed to the earth is
futile, for no date that could be given them is likely
to be even approximately correct, and they may as

158

PRE-DYNASTIC BURIALS.

well date from b.c. 12,000 as from b.c. 8000. Of one
fact, however, we may be quite certain ; that is to say,
^ that the oldest human remains that have been found
in Egypt bear upon them traces of the use of bitumen,
which proves that the Egyptians at the very beginning
of their stay in the valley of the Nile made some
attempt to preserve their dead by means of mummi¬
fication.1 If they were, as many think, invaders who
had made their way across Arabia and the Red Sea and
the eastern desert of the Nile, they may have brought
the idea and habit of preserving their dead with them,
or they may have adopted, in a modified form, some
practice in use among the aboriginal inhabitants whom
they found on their arrival in Egypt ; in either case
the fact that they attempted to preserve their dead by
the use of substances which would arrest decay is
certain, and in a degree their attempt has succeeded.

The existence of the non-historic inhabitants of Egypt
has been revealed to us in recent years by means of a
number of successful excavations which have been
made in Upper Egypt on both sides of the Nile by
several European and native explorers, and one of the
most striking results has been the discovery of three
different kinds of burials, which undoubtedly belong
to three different periods, as we may see by examining
the various objects which have been found in the early
graves at Nakadah and other non-historic sites of the

1 See J. de Morgan, Ethnographie Prdiistorique, Paris, 1897, p. 139.

PRE-DYN ASTIC BURIALS.

159
W-*- —

same age and type. In the oldest tombs we find the o\
skeleton laid upon its left side, with the limbs bent :
the knees are on a level with the breast, and the hands
are placed in front of the face. Generally the head
faces towards the south, but no invariable rule seems
to have been observed as to its “ orientation.” Before
the body was laid in the ground it was either wrapped
in gazelle skin or laid in loose grass; the substance
used for the purposes of wrapping probably depended
upon the social condition of the deceased. In burials
of this class there are no traces of mummification, or
of burning, or of stripping the flesh from the bones.

In the next oldest graves the bodies are found to have
been wholly or partly stripped of their flesh; in the
former case all the bones are found cast indiscrimi¬
nately in the grave, in the latter the bones of the hands
and the feet were laid together, while the rest of the
skeleton is scattered about in wild confusion. Graves
of this period are found to be oriented either north or
south, and the bodies in them usually have the head
separated from the body ; sometimes it is clear that the
bodies have been “ join ted” so that they might occupy
less space. Occasionally the bodies are found lying
upon their backs with their legs and arms folded over
them; in this case they are covered over with clay
casings. In certain graves it is clear that the body ^
has been burnt. Now in all classes of tombs belong-
ing to the prehistoric period in Egypt we find offerings

l60 ANTIQUITY OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY.

in vases and vessels of various kinds, a fact which
proves beyond all doubt that the men who made these
graves believed that their dead friends and relatives
~wuld live again in some place, of the whereabouts
of which they probably had very vague ideas, in a life
which was, presumably, not unlike that which they
had lived upon earth. The flint tools, knives, scrapers
and the like indicate that they thought they would
hunt and slay their quarry when brought down, and
fight their foes ; and the schist objects found in the
graves, which M. de Morgan identifies as amulets,
shows that even in those early days man believed that
he could protect himself against the powers of super¬
natural and invisible enemies by talismans. The man
who would hunt and fight in the next world must live
again; and if he would live again it must be either
in his old body or in a new one ; if in the old body, it
must be revivified. But once having imagined a new
life, probably in a new body, death a second time was
not, the prehistoric Egyptian hoped, within the bounds
of possibility. Here, then, we have the origin of the
grand ideas of the Resurrection and Immortality.

There is every reason for believing that the pre¬
historic Egyptian expected to eat, and to drink, and to
lead a life of pleasure in the region where he imagined
his heaven to be, and there is little doubt that he
thought the body in which he would live there would
be not unlike the body which he had while he was

THE PRIESTS OF HELIOPOLIS. 161

upon earth. At this stage his ideas of the super -
natural and of the future life would be like those of
any man of the same race who stood on the same level
in the scale of civilization, hut in every way he was
a great contrast to the Egyptian who lived, let us say,
in the time of Mena, the first historical king of Egypt,
the date of whom for convenience’ sake is placed at
b.c. 4400. The interval between the time when the
prehistoric Egyptians made the graves described above
and the reign of Mena must have been very consider¬
able, and we may justly believe it to represent some
thousands of years ; but whatever its length, we find ^
that the time was not sufficient to wipe out the early
views which had been handed on from generation to
generation, or even to modify some of the beliefs which
we now know to have existed in an almost unchanged
state at the latest period of Egyptian history. In the
texts which were edited by the priests of Heliopolis
we find references to a state or condition of things,
as far as social matters are concerned, which could
only exist in a society of men who were half savages,
And we see from later works, when extracts are made
from the earlier texts which contain such references,
that the passages in which objectionable allusions
occur are either omitted altogether or modified. We
know of a certainty that the educated men of the
College of Heliopolis cannot have indulged in the
excesses which the deceased kings for whom they

M

1 62 THE BURNING OF THE DEAD.

prepared the funeral texts are assumed to enjoy, and
the mention of the nameless abomination which the
savage Egyptian inflicted upon his vanquished foe can
only have been allowed to remain in them because of
their own reverence for the written word.

In passing it must be mentioned that the religious
ideas of the men who were buried without mutilation
of limbs, or stripping of flesh from the body, or burning,
must have been different from those of the men who
practised such things on the dead. The former are
buried in the ante-natal position of a child, and we
may perhaps be justified in seeing in this custom
the symbol of a hope that as the child is born from
this position into the world, so might the deceased
be born into the life in the world beyond the grave ;
and the presence of amulets, the object of which was
to protect the body, seems to indicate that they
expected the actual body to rise again. The latter,
by the mutilation of the bodies and the burning of
the dead, seem to show that they had no hope of living
again in their natural bodies, and how far they had
approached to the conception of the resurrection of
a spiritual body we shall probably never know. When
we arrive at the IYth dynasty we find that, so far
from any practice of mutilation or burning of the body
being common, every text assumes that the body is
to be buried whole ; this fact indicates a reversal of
the custom of mutilation or burning, which must have

THE BODY AND THE KA.

1 63

been in use, however, for a considerable time. It is
to this reversal that we probably owe such passages
as, “ 0 flesh of Pepi, rot not, decay not, stink not ; ”
“ Pepi goeth forth with his flesh ; ” “ thy bones shall
not be destroyed, and thy flesh shall not perish,” 1 etc. ;
and they denote a return to the views and ways of
the earliest people known to us in Egypt.

In the interval which elapsed between the period
of the prehistoric burials and the IVth dynasty, the
Egyptian formulated certain theories about the com¬
ponent parts of his own body, and we must consider
these briefly before we can describe the form in which
the dead were believed to rise. The physical body
of a man was called khat, a word which indicates
something in which decay is inherent; it was this
which was buried in the tomb after mummification,
and its preservation from destruction of every kind
was the object of all amulets, magical ceremonies,
prayers, and formulae, from the earliest to the latest
times. The god Osiris even possessed such a body,
and its various members were preserved as relics in
several shrines in Egypt. Attached to the body in
some remarkable way was the KA, or “ double,” of a
man ; it may be defined as an abstract individuality
or personality which was endowed with all his cha¬
racteristic attributes, and it possessed an absolutely
independent existence. It was free to move from

1 See Recueil cle Travaux , tom. v. pp. 55, 185 (lines 169, 347, 353),

164 THE KA AND THE SOUL.

place to place upon earth at will, and it could enter
heaven and hold converse with the gods. The offerings
made in the tombs at all periods were intended for
the nourishment of the ka, and it was supposed to
be able to eat and drink and to enjoy the odour of
incense. In the earliest times a certain portion of the
tomb was set apart for the use of the ka, and the
religious organization of the period ordered that a
class of priests should perform ceremonies and recite
prayers at stated seasons for the benefit of the ka
in the ka chapel; these men were known as “ka
priests.” In the period when the pyramids were
built it was firmly believed that the deceased, in some
form, was able to be purified, and to sit down and to
eat bread with it “ unceasingly and for ever ; ” and
the ka who was not supplied with a sufficiency of food
in the shape of offerings of bread, cakes, flowers, fruit,
wine, ale, and the like, was in serious danger of
starvation.

The soul was called ba, and the ideas which the
Egyptians held concerning it are somewhat difficult
to reconcile ; the meaning of the word seems to be
something like “ sublime,” “ noble,” “ mighty.” The
ba dwelt in the ka, and seems to have had the power
of becoming corporeal or incorporeal at will ; it had
both substance and form, and is frequently depicted
on the papyri and monuments as a human-headed
hawk; in nature and substance it is stated to be

THE HEART, SPIRIT AND SHADOW. 165

ethereal. It had the power to leave the tomb, and
to pass up into heaven where it was believed to enjoy
an eternal existence in a state of glory; it could,
however, and did, revisit the body in the tomb, and
fiorn certain texts it seems that it could re-animate
it and hold converse with it. Like the heart ab it
was, in some respects, the seat of life in man. The
souls of the blessed dead dwelt in heaven with the

gods, and they partook of all the celestial enjoyments
for ever.

The spiritual intelligence, or spirit, of a man was
called khu, and it seems to have taken form as a
shining, luminous, intangible shape of the body ; the
khus foimed a class of celestial beings who lived with
the gods, but their functions are not clear. The khu
like the ka, could be imprisoned in the tomb, and
to obviate this catastrophe special formulae were com¬
posed and duly recited. Besides the khu another very
important part of a man s entity went into heaven,
namely, his sekhem. The word literally means “ to
have the mastery over something/’ and, as used in the
early texts, that which enables one to have the mastery
over something, i.e., “power.” The sekhem of a man
was, apparently, his vital force or strength personified,
and the Egyptians believed that it could and did,'
under certain conditions, follow him that possessed
it upon earth into heaven. Another part of a man
was the khaibit or “shadow,” which is frequently

1 66 THE IMPORTANCE OF A NAME.

mentioned in connexion with the soul and, in late
times, was always thought to be near it. Finally
we may mention the ren, or “ name ” of a man, as
one of his most important constituent parts. The
Egyptians, in common with all Eastern nations, attached
the greatest importance to the preservation of the
name, and any person who effected the blotting out
of a man’s name was thought to have destroyed him
also. Like the ka it was a portion of a man’s most
special identity, and it is easy to see why so much
importance grew to be attached to it ; a nameless
being could not be introduced to the gods, and as
no created thing exists without a name the man who
had no name was in a worse position before the divine
powers than the feeblest inanimate object. To per¬
petuate the name of a father was a good son’s duty,
and to keep the tombs of the dead in good repair
so that all might read the names of those who were
buried in them was a most meritorious act. On the
other hand, if the deceased knew the names of divine
beings, whether friends or foes, and could pronounce
them, he at once obtained power over them, and was
able to make them perform his will.

We have seen that the entity of a man consisted of
body, double, soul, heart, spiritual intelligence or spirit,
power, shadow, and name. These eight parts may be
reduced to three by leaving out of consideration the
double, heart, power, shadow and name as representing

THE BODY REMAINS ON EARTH. 167

beliefs which were produced by the Egyptian as he was
slowly ascending the scale of civilization, and as being
the peculiar product of his race ; we may then say that
a man consisted of body, soul, and spirit. But did all
three rise, and live in the world beyond the grave ?
The Egyptian texts answer this question definitely ;
the soul and the spirit of the righteous passed from
the body and lived with the beatified and the gods in
heaven ; but the physical body did not rise again, and
it was believed never to leave the tomb. There were
ignorant people in Egypt who, no doubt, believed in
the resurrection of the corruptible body, and who
imagined that the new life would be, after all, some¬
thing very much like a continuation of that which they
were living in this world; but the Egyptian who
followed the teaching of his sacred writings knew that
such beliefs were not consistent with the views of
their priests and of educated people in general. Already
in the Yth dynasty, about b.c. 3400, it is stated
definitely : —

“ The soul to heaven, the body to earth ; ” 1
and three thousand years later the Egyptian writer
declared the same thing, but in different words, when
he wrote : — 2

“ Heaven hath thy soul, and earth thy body.”

The Egyptian hoped, among other things, that he

1 Recueil de Travaux, tom. iv. p. 71 (1. 582).

2 Horrack, Lamentations d'Isis, Paris, 1866, p. 6.

1 06 THE RENEWAL OF THE BODY.

would sail over the sky in the boat of Ba, but he knew
well that he could not do this in his mortal body ; he
believed firmly that he would live for millions of years,
but with the experience of the human race before him
he knew that this also was impossible if the body in
which he was to live was that in which he had lived
upon earth. At first he thought that his physical body
might, after the manner of the sun, be “ renewed daily,”
and that his new life would resemble that of that
emblem of the Sun-god Ba with which he sought to
identify himself. Later, however, his experience taught
him that the best mummified body was sometimes
destroyed, either by damp, or dry rot, or decay in one
foim or anothei, and that mummification alone was
not sufficient to ensure resurrection or the attainment
of the future life ; and, in brief, he discovered that by
no human means could that which is corruptible by
nature be made to become incorruptible, for the very
animals in which the gods themselves were incarnate
became sick and died in their appointed season. It is
hard to say why the Egyptians continued to mummify
the dead since there is good reason for knowing that
they did not expect the physical body to rise again. It
may be that they thought its preservation necessary for
the welfare of the ka, or “ double,” and for the
development of a new body from it ; also the continued
custom may have been the result of intense conserva¬
tism. But whatever the reason, the Egyptian never

THOTH AND ISIS.

169

ceased to take every possible precaution to preserve the
dead body intact, and he sought for help in his trouble
from another source.

It will be remembered that when Isis found the dead
body of her husband Osiris, she at once set to work to
protect it. She drove away the foes, and made the ill-
luck which had come upon it to be of no effect. In
order to bring about this result “ she made strong her
speech with all the strength of her mouth, she was
perfect of tongue, and she halted not in her speech,”
and she pronounced a series of words or formulae with
which Thoth had provided her ; thus she succeeded in
“ stirring up the inactivity of the Still-heart ” and in
accomplishing her desire in respect of him. Her cries,
prompted by love and grief, would have had no effect
on the dead body unless they had been accompanied by
the words of Thoth, which she uttered with boldness
(Jehu), and understanding (aqer), and without fault in
pronunciation (an-uh). The Egyptian of old kept this
fact in his mind, and determined to procure the resur¬
rection of his friends and relatives by the same means
as Isis employed, i.e., the formulae of Thoth ; with this
object in view each dead person was provided with a
series of texts, either written upon his coffin, or upon
papyri and amulets, which would have the same effect
as the words of Thoth which were spoken by Isis. But
the relatives of the deceased had also a duty to perform
in this matter, and that was to provide for the recital

170

THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

of certain prayers, and for the performance of a number
of symbolical ceremonies over the dead body before it
was laid to rest finally in the tomb. A sacrifice had to
be offered up, and the deceased and his friends and
relatives assisted at it, and each ceremony was accom¬
panied by its proper prayers ; when all had been done
and said according to the ordinances of the priests, the
body was taken to its place in the mummy chamber.
But the words of Thoth and the prayers of the priests
caused the body to become changed into a “ sahu,” or
incorruptible, spiritual body, which passed straightway
out of the tomb and made its way to heaven where it
dwelt with the gods. When in the Book of the Dead
the deceased says, “ I exist, I exist; I live, I live; I
germinate, I germinate,1 ” 1 and again, “ I germinate like
the plants/’ 2 the deceased does not mean that his
physical body is putting forth the beginnings of another
body like the old one, but a spiritual body which “ hath
neither defect nor, like Ba, shall suffer diminution for
ever.” Into the sahu passed the soul which had lived
in the body of a man upon earth, and it seems as if the
new, incorruptible body formed the dwelling-place of
the soul in heaven just as the physical body had been
its earthly abode. The reasons why the Egyptians
continued to mummify their dead is thus apparent;
they did not do so believing that their physical bodies
would rise again, but because they wished the spiritual

See Cliap. cliv. 2 See Chap, lxxxviii. 3.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY.

I/I

body to “ sprout ” or “ germinate ” from them, and if
possible — at least it seems so — to be in the form of
the physical body. In this way did the dead rise
according to the Egyptians, and in this body did they
come.

From what has been said above, it will be seen that
there is no reason for doubting the antiquity of the
Egyptian belief in the resurrection of the dead and in
immortality, and the general evidence derived both
from archaeological and religious considerations sup¬
ports this view. As old, however, as this belief in
general is the specific belief in a spiritual body (sah or
sahu); for we find it in texts of the Vth dynasty
incorporated with ideas which belong to the pre-historic
Egyptian in his savage or semi-savage state. One
remarkable extract will prove this point. In the
funeral chapters which are inscribed on the walls of the
chambers and passages inside the pyramid of King
Unas, who flourished at the end of the Yth dynasty,
about B.c. 3300, is a passage in which the deceased
king terrifies all the powers of heaven and earth because
he “ riseth as a soul (ba) in the form of the god who
liveth upon his fathers and who maketh food of his
mothers. Unas is the lord of wisdom and his mother
knoweth not his name. He hath become mighty like
unto the god Temu, the father who gave him birth, and
after Temu gave him birth he became stronger than his
father.” The king is likened unto a Bull, and he

172 THE DECEASED EATS HIS GODS.

feedeth upon every god, whatever may be the form in
which he appeareth ; “ he hath weighed words with the
god whose name is hidden,” and he devoureth men and
liveth upon gods. The dead king is then said to set
out to hunt the gods in their meadows, and when he
has caught them with nooses, he causes them to be
slain. They are next cooked in blazing cauldrons, the
greatest for his morning meal, the lesser for his evening
meal, and the least for his midnight meal ; the old gods
and goddesses serve as fuel for his cooking pots. In
this way, having swallowed the magical powers and
spirits of the gods, he becomes the Great Power of
Powers among the gods, and the greatest of the gods
who appear in visible forms. “ Whatever he hath
found upon his path he hath consumed, and his strength
is greater than that of any spiritual body (sahu) in the
horizon; he is the firstborn of all the firstborn, and
. . . he hath carried off the hearts of the gods. ... He
hath eaten the wisdom of every god, and his period of
existence is everlasting, and his life shall be unto all
eternity, ... for the souls and the spirits of the gods
are in him.”

We have, it is clear, in this passage an allusion to
the custom of savages of all nations and periods, of
eating portions of the bodies of valiant foes whom they
have vanquished in war in order to absorb their virtues
and strength ; the same habit has also obtained in some
places in respect of animals. In the case of the gods

BELIEF IN ETERNAL LIFE.

173

the deceased is made to covet their one peculiar
attribute, that is to say, everlasting life ; and when he
has absorbed their souls and spirits he is declared to
have obtained all that makes him superior to every
other spiritual body in strength and in length of life.
The “ magical powers ” {helm), which the king is also
said to have “ eaten, are the words and formulae, the
utterance of which by him, in whatever circumstances he
may be placed, will cause every being, friendly or un-
Iriendly, to do his will. But apart from any question of
the slaughter of the gods the Egyptians declared of this
same king, “ Behold, thou hast not gone as one dead,
but as one living, to sit upon the throne of Osiris ; ” *
and in a papyrus written nearly two thousand years
later the deceased himself says, “ My soul is God, my
soul is eternity,” 2 a clear proof that the ideas of the
existence of God and of eternity were identical. Yet
one other example is worth quoting, if only to show the
care that the writers of religious texts took to impress
the immortality of the soul upon their readers. Accord¬
ing to Chapter CLXXV. of the Book of the Dead the
deceased finds himself in a place where there is neither
water nor air, and where " it is depth unfathomable, it is
black as the blackest night, and men wander helplessly
therein. In it a man may not live in quietness of
heart, nor may the longings of love be satisfied therein.

1 Recueil de Travaux, tom. y. p. 167 (1. 65).

* Papyrus of Ani, Plate 28, 1. 15 (Chapter lxxxiv.).

174

BELIEF IN ETERNAL LIFE.

But,” says the deceased to the god Thoth, “ let the state
of the spirits be given unto me instead of water, and
air, and the satisfying of the longings of love, and let
quietness of heart he given unto me instead of cakes
and ale. The god Temu hath decreed that I shall see
thy face, and that I shall not suffer from the things
which pained thee 5 may every god transmit unto thee
[0 Osiris] his throne for millions of years ! Thy throne
hath descended unto thy son Horus, and the god Temu
hath decreed that his course shall be among the holy
princes. Verily he shall rule over thy throne, and he
shall be heir of the throne of the Dweller in the Lake
of the Two Fires. Verily it hath been decreed that in
me he shall see his likeness,1 and that my face shall look
upon the face of the lord Tern” After reciting these
words, the deceased asks Thoth, “ How long have I to
live ? ” and the god replies, “ It is decreed that thou
shalt live for millions of millions of years, a life of
millions of years.” To give emphasis and additional
effect to his words the god is made to speak tautologi¬
cally so that the most unlettered man may not miss
their meaning. A little later in the Chapter the
deceased says, “ 0 my father Osiris, thou hast done for
me that which thy father Ba did for thee. So shall
I abide on the earth lastingly, I shall keep possession
of my seat ; my heir shall be strong ; my tomb and my
friends who are upon earth shall flourish ; my enemies

1 Le.y I shall be like Horus, the son of Osiris.

CELESTIAL FOOD.

175

shall be given over to destruction and to the shackles of
the goddess Serq. I am thy son, and Ba is my father ;
for me likewise thou shalt make life, and strength, and
health ! ” It is interesting to note that the deceased
first identifies Osiris with Ba, and then he identifies
himself with Osiris ; thus he identifies himself with Ba.

With the subjects of resurrection and immortality
must be mentioned the frequent references in the
religious texts of all periods to the meat and drink
on which lived the beings who were believed to exist
in the world beyond the grave. In prehistoric days
it was natural enough for the dead man’s friends to
place food in his grave, because they thought that he
would require it on his journey to the next world ; this
custom also presupposed that the deceased would have
a body like unto that which he had left behind him
in this world, and that it would need food and drink.
In the Yth dynasty the Egyptians believed that the
blessed dead lived upon celestial food, and that they
suffered neither hunger nor thirst ; they ate what the
gods ate, they drank what they drank, they were what
they were, and became in such matters as these the
counterparts of the gods. In another passage we
read that they are apparelled in white linen, that
they wear white sandals, and that they go to the great
lake which is in the midst of the Field of Peace
whereon the great gods sit, and that the gods give
them to eat of the food (or tree) of life of which they

176 THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.

themselves eat that they also may live. It is certain,
however, that other views than these were held con¬
cerning the food of the dead, for already in the Vth
dynasty the existence of a region called Sekhet-Aaru,
or Sekhet-Aanru had been formulated, and to this
place the soul, or at least some part, of the pious
Egyptian hoped to make its way. Where Sekhet-
Aaru was situated we have no means of saying, and
the texts afford us no clue as to its whereabouts ; some
scholars think that it lay away to the east of Egypt,
but it is far more likely to represent some district of
the Delta either in its northern or north-eastern portion.
Fortunately we have a picture of it in the Papyrus
of Nebseni,1 the oldest probably on papyrus, and from
this we may see that Sekhet-Aaru, i.e., the “Field of
Reeds,” typified some very fertile region where farming
operations could be carried on with ease and success.
Canals and watercourses abound, and in one section,
we are told, the spirits of the blessed dwelt; the
picture probably represents a traditional “ Paradise ”
or “Elysian Fields,” and the general characteristics
of this happy land are those- of a large, well-kept, and
well-stocked homestead, situated at no great distance
from the Nile or one of its main branches. In the
Papyrus of Nebseni the divisions of the Sekhet-Aaru
contain the following : —

1 Brit. Mus., No. 9900; this document belongs to tlie XVIIIth
dynasty.

:<«««««««^<<<««<«^<|

The Elysian Fields of the Egyptians according to the Papyrus of Nebseni (X VTIIth dynasty).

N

THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.

179

1. Nebseni, the scribe and artist of the Temple of

Ptah, with his arms hanging by his sides, entering the
Elysian Fields.

2. Nebseni making an offering of incense to the
“ great company of the gods.”

3. Nebseni seated in a boat paddling; above the
boat are three symbols for “ city.”

4. Nebseni addressing a bearded mummied
figure.

5. Three Pools or Lakes called Urti, Hetep, and
Qetqet.

6. Hebseni reaping in Sekhet-hetepet.

7. Nebseni grasping the Bennu bird, which is

perched upon a stand; in front are three kau and
three khu.

8. iSebseni seated and smelling a flower; the text

reads : “ Thousands of all good and pure things to the
ka of Nebseni.”

9. A table of offerings.

10. Four Pools or Lakes called Nebt-taui, Uakha,
Kha (?), and Hetep.

11. Nebseni ploughing with oxen by the side of a
stream which is one thousand [measures] in length,

and the width of which cannot be said ; in it there are
neither fish nor worms.

12. Nebseni ploughing with oxen on an island “the
length of which is the length of heaven.”

13. A division shaped like a bowl, in which is

jgo THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.

inscribed : “ The birthplace (?) of the god of the city
Qenqentet Nebt.”

14. An island whereon are four gods and a flight of
steps ; the legend reads : “ The great company of the

gods who are in Sekhet-hetep.”

15. The boat Tchetetfet, with eight oars, four at the
bows, and four at the stern, floating at the end of a
canal ; in it is a flight of steps. The place where it lies

is called the “ Domain of Neth.”

16. Two Pools, the names of which are illegible.

The scene as given in the Papyrus of Ani 1 gives some

interesting variants and may be described thus : —

1. Ani making an offering before a hare-headed god,
a snake-headed god, and a bull-headed god , behind
him stand his wife Thuthu and Thoth holding his reed
and palette. Ani paddling a boat. Ani addressing a
hawk, before which are a table of offerings, a statue,
three ovals, and the legend, “ Being at peace in the
Field, and having air for the nostrils.”

2. Ani reaping corn, Ani driving the oxen which
tread out the corn; Ani addressing (or adoring) a
Bennu bird perched on a stand ; Ani seated holding
the hherp sceptre ; a heap of red and a heap of white
corn; three KAU and three KHU, which are perhaps
to be read, “ the food of the spirits ; ” and three
Pools.

3. Ani ploughing a field near a stream which contains

1 Brit. Mus., No. 10,470, Plate 35.

The Elysian Fields of the Egyptians according to the Papyrus of Ani (XVllIth dynasty).

THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 1 83

neither fish, nor serpents, nor worms of any kind what¬
soever.

4. The birthplace of the “ god of the city ; ” an island
on which is a flight of steps ; a region called the “ place
of the spirits” who are seven cubits high, where the
wheat is three cubits high, and where the sahu, or
spiritual bodies, reap it ; the region Ashet, the god
who dwelleth therein being Un-nefer ( i.e ., a form of
Osiris) ; a boat with eight oars lying at the end of a
canal ; and a boat floating on a canal. The name of
the first boat is Behutu-tcheser, and that of the second
Tchefau.

So far we have seen that in heaven and in the world
beyond the grave the deceased has found only divine
beings, and the doubles, and the souls, and the spirits,
and the spiritual bodies of the blessed ; but no refer¬
ence has been made to the possibility of the dead
recognizing each other, or being able to continue the
friendships or relationships which they had when
upon earth. In the Sekhet-Aaru the case is, however,
different, for there we have reason to believe relation¬
ships were recognized and rejoiced in. Thus in