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.

63/474 (page 49)

49 But it was the home of dear ones, waiting, too, for them to come over. The Feasts of the Dead, like the Irish Wakes, were, perhaps, seasons of extravagance and, at times, of moral degradation ; but they met a want of poor humanity. The story of Charon, the ferryman, is to be found not only in Homer, but in the poetry of many lands. The River must be crossed before gaining the Elysian Fields, or the Isles of the Blest. The Ritual of Egypt described a Charon and his boat long ages before Homer. He is Khu-en-ua, the hawk-headed steersman. The “Records of the Past,” edited by Dr. Birch, and one of the most interesting and important of archeological publications, has a translation from L. Stern, of the “ Son? of the Harper. This old poem was taken from a tomb of the date of the eighteenth dynasty, approaching 4,000 years ago. It was, doubtless, a funeral song, chanted on the anniversary of the death of a father. The Harper sings in some verses to the spirit of the dead, and then addresses the living friends around himu “ Men,” he cries, “ pass away since the time of Ra, and the youths come in their stead. Like as Ra (the sun) re- appears every morning, and Turn sets in the horizon, men are begetting, and women are conceiving. But all born of women go down to their places.” He then adds, “ They (the Dead) are sitting on the bank of the river, thy soul is among them, drinking its sacred river.” A curious Egyptian tablet pictures one gate of Amenti guarded by three deities with the respective heads of a crocodile, a lion, and a dog. That gate is “ Total Dark- ness.” Other gates are called “Concealer of Forms,” “ Revealer of Fortune,” “ Destroyer of Conscience,” “ Arm of Earth,’ “ Punishing Spirit,” and “ Sharpening Flame.” The noise of souls in one department is compared to the