Des Arc weekly citizen., 1867-04-06
Tombs of the Ancient Egyptians.


 l A description of the tombs of tn, ancient Egyptians will be given in tht | following quotation of"Uawks' Egyp and the Biblc.'
 "In Upper Egypt, rocky mountains form the western boundary of the val I Icy of the Nile. In these immense caverns were cut, with incredible labor as rcceptaclcs for the dead In Lower Egypt, where no mountains exist, dcel pits were dug and lined with brick or when rocks existed, they werc dug 1 into the rock, as places of interment. l Nothing presents itself in the study of the mannets and the customs of an. cient Egypt as developed in her exist ing remains, moro striking than tho respect shown to the dead. Diodoru; Siculus, who wrote fifty-six years be. fore the Christian Era, has remarked that tho Egyptians spent more time upon their tombs than they did upon 1 their houses.
 l i1Oiut VI thC SCiiiNtSitNS siS hiASs with the remains of the common peo- pie. These arc not always in coffins ] but envcloped in the folds of the linen with which they were swathed, they are piled in the mummy pits witl great regularity. They were all en- balmed, and the number is immense.
 Again, there arc the family vaults oi the wealthy, the priesthood, the mili- tary. There are sometimes very eS- tcnsiYc, consisting of various rooms connected by galleries with the walls of the apartments covered with paint. ings. The scenes dclincated most commonly have reference to the opcr- ations of ordinary life.
 The deceased is represented with his 1 family around him; sometimes they arc at the banquet, sometimes listen l ing 10 music, or amusing themselves with the dance. Again, he is seen in the country, hunting or fishing; next. l he is experimenting agricultural la- bors. In short, almost every species 1 of mechanical labor is depicted iii the ! in the tombs. Allare scenes of activi- l ty. and it has been well said that "eve- rything in them savers of life but the corpse.
 ] The predominant wish seems 10 have /, been to banish from them all that could suggest the idea of death; and the only explanation that offers itscli of this singular custom is that thc pro- 1 prictor of the tomb employed himself while living, in the preparation for his 1 postcrity of what might be called q pictorial autobiography. But the aris- tocratic dead of these costly resting places, unlike the poor, whose swathed mummies are packed ill tiers, sleep in their respective coffin of granite, ba- i salt or alabaster, sculptored over with l figures and inscriptions which is char itable to suppose arc at least as truth l ful as inc majority of modern cpitaphs These stone collins, it was doubtless supposed supposed by their occupants, would protect their bodies after deatli ! from an unhallowed disintermcnt but i the very care taken to secure their re- mains from violation has often led to the dcsecration against which they would guard. The linen bandage around the common mummy of the pits offered nothing to the decipherer. while the inscriptions on the sarcoph- agus afforded to the zcalous antiquari- an an opportunity not to be neglected of adding characters to his hieroglyph- ic alphabet, or words to his Egyptian vocabulary. Many of the cabinets of Europe can show fragments of sar. cophagus; and but few take the trou- ble to preserve many specimens of the common mummy of the pit.
 Sometimes the wealthy dead were cofllned in wooden case, or double case, of sycamore, covered with gild- ing and painting.
 These, as they offered the same tempta- ton as the inscribed sarcophatlus, have shared the same fate. But the tombs contain, beside the dead, other articles l the removal of which involves nc charge of dissertation, With the dead it was usual to deposit, in the tombs articles of luxury on which they had set Il value while living; and in the case of the humble artisan, the tools and utensils which he used in life werS laid with him when he rested from lis toll. Hence various objects of interest l have been found in the tombs. .Ele. gant vases of granite, alabaster, meta and earth, arc abundant in the variou, museums of Europe. The tools of tho mason and carpenter, articles ofhousc, hold furniture, models of boats an6 houses, the pallets used by the sacred scribes, with their cakes of ink an6 reed pens. or brushes, with variou, other articles, are by no means uncom mon. Books, written on rolls of tn, papyrus-which was made from tn, inner coat of species of reed one, abundant in the lakes and canals O Egypt, though now rarely to be me I with, arc also found, sometimes en closed in the swathings of the mummy sometimes in hollow cases of wood ol in carthen jars"
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