Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick.

  • James Bonwick
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/474 (page 20)
    The coffin and sarcophagus are also suggestive of the religion of the Egyptians, as they bear illustrative pictures of a religious nature. Such inscriptions as the following may be mentioned : “ O thou N , child of the heaven, born of the goddess Maut,” But the very ancient coffins are devoid of the pictorial. In the eleventh dynasty they are of the form of the body. The sarcophagus in early times was simple enough. M. Roug6 remarks, “that of King Menkeres (fourth dy- nasty) presents the appearance of a little edifice ; it was not decorated by any figure, simple architectural lines dis- posed with infinite taste composing its ornamentation. Dr. Birch writes: “ From the fourth to the eleventh dynasty the sarcophagi were of a kind of black basalt, red granite, or calcareous stone, of rectangular shape, with flat or vaulted cover, and four ears or projections at the corners.” Inside, the mummy was deposited in a wooden coffin, made of boards of cedar or sycamore, pinned together with wooden plugs. In the twelfth dynasty the sarcophagus was cut with great precision, but only adorned by a simple hieroglyphic legend. Some of later days were profusely ornamented with writing and sculptured figures. The world outside was often warned not to displace or injure the monument. Even on the tomb of a king of Sidon we find this written : “ My oath is upon the whole royal family, that no man shall open my grave, nor move away my sarcophagus, nor lay another one in this resting-place, nor take away the covering of my tomb, lest the holy gods shut him out.” Only a visit to Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn, can adequately describe the alabaster sarcophagus of Oimenephthah I. This has been accurately copied by M. Bonomi, the late venerable curator of the museum. It was cut out of a single block of fine alabaster stone, and