Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick.

James Bonwick

Date:: 1878

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

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$form, representing a spider in the centre of its web. Col- lars, or oitsekh, \YtvQ decorated. Fingers were'laden with rings, and the neck with necklaces. Finger nails were often stained with henna. Hearts, meaning life, were sus- pended from the person. There were reclining hawks and scarabei sewn on the bandelettes. Seeds, to represent good works, were threaded; tats, crosses, seals, little columns, vultures, and other symbols, were hung about the neck. The chest was often filled with tiny images of the gods, some being of gold and silver. Papyri, or rolls of paper, covered with hieroglyphical writing, was placed next the skin, between the cloths, under the head, round the covering, or in strips, as phylacteries among the Jews. They served, as other amulets, to ward off evil from the deceased. Texts of Scripture were especially useful to keep evil spirits at a distance, and comfort the travelling soul in its dangerous and trying peregrinations. Coffins were sometimes highly adorned with paintings. They were superbly gilt from the nineteenth to the twenty- sixth dynasty, though black inside and out during the eighteenth. Some bodies, were provided with three coffins. The chevet, or pillow, was ornamented. The earliest coffins had no pictures, and the skeletons in them display poor embalming, and little wrapping, though the odour of bitu- men is sensibly retained. From the twelfth to the fifteenth dynasty, the coffins were rather plain at Thebes, and the body looks black with a dried skin. The hands were hid- den at one epoch, and left out in another. The corpse has a yellow look in coffins of the eleventh and seventeenth dynasties. Of the mummies in the height of Egypt’s glory, from the eighteenth to the twenty-first dynasty, we find the Memphite are black and dried, while the Theban are yellow, shining, and very flexible. In$

Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick.

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