Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-16
EGYPTIAN BURIAL RITES.
What Once Little Understood Ancient
Practices Are Now Thought to Signify

From the London Lancet.
In a leading article in the Lancet some
years ago upon the Ethnological Signln-
canoe of Ancient Egyptian Burial Kites,
somewhat full description was furnished OF
the early prehistoric interments OF Egypt,
from which we find that the skeleton was
completely broken up and the bones were
arranged in a symmetrical order in cav
ity in the sand. which IN these prlmitlVe
Zines served as a sepulchre. 1t was con-
sidered that these kinds of burlals were
those of a race different from That or the
so-called ancient Egyptians, and that all
historical traces of the burial practices OF
what may be termed these proto-Eeyptians
had been lost, though some very obscure
texts in the Oldest magic Itinerary literature
of the Egyptians were thought to refer to
the matter.
the Daily Divine Worship IN the Egyptian
Temples" in referring to several chapters.
some of them accompanied by illustrative
vignettes, inscribed upon tombs, edltces or
papyri proves that a whole series of rit-
ualistic incantations allude to and indeed
derive their origin from these ancient fu-
nerary practices. The proof OF the frst
fact occurs very convincngly In chapters
20 and p of the Ritual of Ammon, pre-
served upon a papyrus now at Berlin, and
also upon the walls of some temples,
work that has only recently been trans
lated. 1t speaks of the presentation, as an
oil on purpose to produce the orderly rear
rangement of his bones and members. ac-
tually asserting that his skeleton will be
put In order. At the same time other pas
sages of the ritual speak of the deity as
mummy, thus indicating that in the diurnal
temple worship, for this papyrus is the ru-
brio for this official cult, not only was the
god assimilated to a mummifed hero. but
that he also had to be adored by acts or
lamentations necesstated by recollection of
the archaic methods OF Egyptian burials
previously to mummifcation being invented
or introduced by some other people.
These ancient rituals therefore afford a
mingling of the practices of the alien races
or of the earlier and the later ones Of the
same people. The skeletons discovered by
Professor Petrie and M. Amelienau and u
tan places of sepulture had been effectually
disarticulated and carefully rearranged land
the fact that the ritual for the worship of
the gods, In many cases deified ancestors
and chiefs, contains texts speaking of the
replacing, or rather the readjustment, of the
bones of the skeleton to their original SCI
rial order, distinctly declares recollection
OF an epoch in which the skeleton was
broken up and arranged quite otherwise
than in life. The idea that the reconstruc-
ton of the dismembered body was a neces-
sity in order that the spirit might again
have tit tenement to occupy runs through
the rubrics required to be recite6 at reli-
gious fetes through almost all Egyptian
history; though to what extent the many
generations of priests who recited, and of
people who read and heard them, compre-
hended their origin and significantse. we do
not know, because. so far as we are aware,
FOR thousands of years mummifying had
been considered the only proper method for
disposal Of the cadavex.