Chapter 151 is not so much a text as a picture. It represents the

funeral chamber. The four walls, which should be vertical, are drawn
lying flat on the ground. In the middle of the chamber, under a canopy,
is the mummy, on which Anubis lays his hands; under the bed is a bird
with a human head, the symbol of the soul of the deceased. We must
suppose that the god Anubis is a priest, or a member of the family, who
has put on a jackal’s head, and who pronounces the words said to be
those of the god. At the foot of the bed are the two goddesses Isis and
Nephthys.

Each of the four walls had a small niche of the exact size of an amulet,
which was lodged in it. We know it from the four oriented steles of
Marseilles (Naville, _Les quatre stèles orientées du Musée de
Marseille_), where we find the text belonging to each wall, and also the
niche cut in the stone for each amulet. On the North was a human figure,
on the South a flame, on the East a jackal, on the West a Tat.

In the chamber were four so-called canopic vases, with the gods of the
four cardinal points, each of whom has his words to say. Besides these
were statuettes called _shabti_ or _ushabti_, the helpers of the
deceased in his work in the Elysian fields. In the papyrus London, 10010
(_Af._), from which this chapter is translated, one of them has the
usual appearance, the other the head of Anubis.

The soul of the deceased is supposed to be in the chamber, and to
worship the rising and the setting sun.

Very few papyri have this chapter as complete as _Af._, which is taken
here as standard for text and vignettes, but there are fragments of it
here and there. The Turin version is much shorter than the old one. The
papyrus of _Nu_ (ed. Budge) contains the texts of the four walls with
rubrics very similar to those of the steles in Marseilles. They form a
special chapter joined to 137A, with the title: _What is done secretly
in the Tuat, the mysteries of the Tuat, the introduction into the
mysteries of the Netherworld._

In order to facilitate the understanding of the chapter, I have lettered
the words spoken by the various figures.

1. Renouf would have translated (see Chapter 42), thy eyebrows are
_those of_ Anubis; but the following chapter shows that we have to
translate _with_ Anubis, which should mean here, under the protection of
Anubis.

2. The rubrics say the figure is made of palm wood, and is seven fingers
high.

3. The rubric of this Tat is the following: _said on a Tat of crystal,
the branches of which are of gold. It is folded up in fine linen._

There is another chapter of the Tat put on the neck of the deceased
(Chapter 155), the words of which are totally different.

4. According to the rubric, the flame is a torch made of reeds
⁂⁂⁂⁂ (Loret).

5. The Anubis was made of clay.

6. Words engraved on the funerary statuettes called ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂
or ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂, an abridged form of Chapter 6, for which I take
Renouf’s translation.

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