Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge

“ The Egyptians realized at a very early period that it was useless to load the tables for offerings in the tombs with bread, beer, meat, fruit, and vegetables unless the dead could in some way partake of them, and the priests invented a series of ceremonies and composed formulae which were intended to bring about this desirable result. The belief in the importance of “Opening the Mouth” for the dead has long been known to Egyptologists, in fact ever since the publication of the text of the Saïte Recension of the Book of the Dead by Lepsius in 1842. ”

“ The effect of the sprinkling of water over the statue, or the washing of it with water, was to remove the sins of the deceased from him, and to cleanse his body and Ka. There can be no doubt that the Egyptians in all periods attached very great importance to the use of water ceremonially, and there is good reason for believing that they regarded it as one of the principal sources of life, since the gods were created from water, and Nu, the great god of the celestial deeps, was the father of the gods. ”

“ The Egyptians attached great importance to spoken words, and they regarded the power of speech and the gift of the voice as mighty weapons, both for the living and the dead. The Kau, or Doubles, of the dead who had learned to utter words correctly, and who knew the proper tones to employ in uttering them, were in a position to go where they pleased and to do what they liked, for no god, spirit, fiend, or devil, and no inanimate object, could help obeying the commands which they uttered. ”

“ The effluxes of Osiris here referred to are undoubtedly the humours which were believed to have drained out of the body of Osiris when Horus and his "sons" were embalming it. From the above passages it is clear that the Egyptians regarded these humours as pure or holy, for they represented the very essence of the god. Now the Egyptians were not the only people in the world who attached mystic power and importance to the fluid which ran out from the dead, but though the texts make it certain that they did, we cannot learn from them exactly why they should do so. ”

“ The consistent, persistent, ineradicable and unalterable belief in immortality is the chief fundamental of the Egyptian Religion, and the attainment of everlasting life was the end to which every religious ceremony was performed, and every funerary text written. ”

“ Some of the liquid is kept in order to injure enemies. The object of drinking the liquid is, clearly, to obtain the qualities of the dead man, his strength, and, perhaps, his vital power, and it is possible also that those who indulged in such practices did so with the idea of avoiding injury from the departed spirit. What the Egyptians did with the humours of the dead is unknown, but in the case of great and holy men, that which drained from their bodies was certainly turned to some good account by the living. ”

“ We know that certain kinds of food and drink were offered in certain quantities, and in a definite order, and that every detail of the ceremonies connected with their presentation was performed according to a system which had then been in use for a very long time. The ceremonies and formulae of the liturgy of funeral sacrifice in their oldest forms belong, no doubt, to the earliest period of Egyptian civilization, and it is very probable that many of them were in existence in the Predynastic Period. ”

“ The Egyptians were an eminently practical people, and, however great and powerful they thought their kings, they must have perceived that it was impossible for them to send funerary gifts to the tombs of each and all their subjects. It may be argued that the king was held to be god as well as man, and that he was therefore able to supply every dead person with offerings, like Seb, or Ȧnpu, or Osiris, or Khenti Ȧmenti, but there seems to me to be no evidence in the texts which would support this view. ”

“ As in the Book of Opening the Mouth the words spoken by the Kher-ḥeb, or chief officiating priest, were believed to change the meat, and bread, and wine into divine substances, so in the Liturgy also the formula which was said over each element was supposed to change it into a divine and spiritual food, which was partaken of by the souls of the gods and of the dead. ”

“ Every festival on every day for ever [12] Passing now to the period of the XIIth Dynasty, we find that lists of offerings similar to those on monuments of the Vth and VIth Dynasties are not unknown, and a good example of such is given in the tomb of Ȧmen-em-ḥāt at Beni Hasan. Here on one of the walls is a picture of the deceased seated, with tables and stands loaded with offerings before him, and in the upper registers is a tabulated list containing the names of one hundred and twenty-one offerings. [13] This may for convenience’ sake be called the Great List of Offerings. ”

“ All the facts we now have tend to show that at some very early period in the history of Egypt the priests drew up a List of the offerings which it was thought right to offer to the dead, and that they composed a series of formulae which were to be repeated by the officiating priests when they presented the offerings to the dead. ”

“ In the Pre-dynastic Period men buried offerings of food, unguents, &c., with their dead, believing that, in some mysterious way, such material gifts would assist their relatives and friends to maintain their existence in the Other World. ”

“ The general deduction to be made from them is that under the XIXth Dynasty the Egyptians believed that the bodies, souls, and spirits of the wicked were destroyed, that those of the good were rewarded with everlasting life and great felicity, and that the offerings made by men in this world went before them and awaited them in that which was to come. ”

“ In the second section of the great text in the Pyramid of Unȧs [2] the “Chiefs” are called upon to give to king Unȧs in heaven the loaves of bread, cakes, and drink-offerings which he had offered to them upon earth, and Rā himself orders those beings who preside over the products of the year to give Unȧs wheat, barley, bread, and beer from the supplies which they had collected. “For, for Unȧs to be hungry and not to eat, and to be thirsty and not to drink, is an abomination to him” (l. 195) . ”

“ Among the Egyptians of the Dynastic Period the presentation of offerings to the dead was regarded as one of the chief duties in life of the religious man, and it will here be well to illustrate their views on the subject by references to texts of several periods. ”

“ Now suten is the common word for "king," ḥetep we have already seen means "offering," and ṭā means "to give," and it seems at first sight as if the group of signs must mean something like "May the king give an offering." Frequently, however, these signs are followed by
i.e., "May Anubis give an offering." What the king is expected to give is not said, but Anubis is asked, or called upon, to give "a burial in Ȧmenti," and "to provide the deceased with bread, beer, and cakes at the festival." ”

“ It is known from many texts that souls journeyed from one great sanctuary to another in Egypt, and that they assisted at all the great national festivals, and expected to receive their due share of the offerings which were brought to the altars. ”

“ The texts make it quite clear that the Egyptians believed in a dual-soul; one member could not die, but the other only lived as long as it was fed with offerings by the living, and provided with an abode, i.e., a statue. Offerings were brought to the funerary chapels and tombs daily, and additional gifts were presented on the days of all great festivals. ”

“ The Horus who is always associated with Set is “Horus the Great,” or “Horus the Elder,” the Haroeris of the Greeks, but the Horus mentioned in the Liturgy in connection with “Followers” is “Horus, the son of Isis.” ”

“ When an important Luba chief expires, every one, great and small, must mourn in a subdued tone; the members of all the brotherhoods come before the house where the body lies to perform dances; the women violently strike their hatchet and hoe against each other. ”

“ Rā in the text of Unȧs [2] is said to be “Sovereign of the divine Sa" . The gods and goddesses received this Sa from Rā and communicated it to those whom they loved upon earth. According to M. Moret, [3] the fluid of life could be transmitted from the being who possessed it to the person to whom it was desired to transfer it, by embracing that person and by making “magnetic passes” along the back. ”

“ Being convinced of the importance of the text, Sig. Schiaparelli spent a winter in copying it, and he devoted himself to the preparation of an edition of the text on the coffin in Turin, which dates from the XXth Dynasty, and that of the Paris papyrus, which was written probably between a.d. 50 and 150. Neither text is accompanied by Vignettes, and many parts of them it is impossible to understand without illustrations. About this time, fortunately, his attention was called to a series of drawings of scenes in the tomb of Seti I. at Thebes which Champollion [2] had made and published. ”

“ The libation thus poured out either represented the essence of Horus and the essence of Set, which was the source of the strength of their hearts, and the substance which gave them life, or was believed to be transmuted into that essence through the words of power spoken by the Kher ḥeb. The power of the Semmȧn water was great, for as soon as it touched the face of the deceased his mouth was opened, and he was able to taste the emission, or life essence, of Horus and Set. ”

“ On tire other hand, the fact that personal ornaments were buried with the food, and flint weapons of war and the chase, suggests that the living intended them to be used lay the dead for an indefinitely long period. ”

“ The exact meaning of the word is "effluxes," or "outflowings," and the determinatives show that by erṭu we are to understand the strong-smelling liquid which exudes from a dead body. Several passages in the Book of the Dead support this view, as the following examples will prove. In Chapter LXIIIB. 2, we have, "I have lifted up the efflux from Osiris," ; in Chapter CXIX., "Pure are the effluxes which are borne away from thee," ; in Chapter CXLVII. 6, "I have come unto thee, Osiris, pure one of effluxes," ”

“ It is the “words” of Unȧs which are in question here, and in Egypt both gods and men judged a man by his “words.” The sprinkling of the water caused Thoth to carry the words of evil uttered by Unȧs, and place them in the hand of the god. ”

“ By eating the same food as beatified beings, and by drinking the same drink, mortals, they thought, acquired something of the nature of immortals, and the communion of the righteous on earth with the blessed in heaven was effected. ”

“ He next walked round the statue four times, sprinkling the salted water on it on all sides, or perhaps washing portions of it, and meanwhile the Kher ḥeb said four times:-- "O Osiris, everything which is hateful in Unȧs hath been carried away for thee; for that which was uttered in his name of evil hath Thoth come, and he hath carried it away to Osiris. I have brought that which was spoken in the name of Unȧs of evil, and have placed it in the palm of thy hand. The Sa shall not be separated from thee, and thou shalt not be separated from it." ”

“ A few lines further on (line 150) we have: "Suten ḥetep ṭā. May Seb give an offering to this Tetȧ. May he give to thee offerings of all kinds in sets of four, and a setting forth in abundance of bread-cakes and vessels of beer, and bread of all kinds which thou lovest, and which are fair for thee before the God." In Pepi II., line 680, we have the passage "Suten ṭā ḥetep. May Seb give these chosen haunches of beef and pert-kheru offerings to all the gods, so that they may cause every good thing to happen to Pepi Nefer-ka-Rā." ”

“ From many passages in texts of the Ancient Empire it is clear that offerings of food were given to the dead, chiefly by Anubis. Thus in Tetȧ, line 387, it is said, "Ȧnpu Khenti Ȧmenti giveth thee an offering, thy thousands of bread cakes, thy thousands of vessels of beer, thy thousands of vases of oil, thy thousands of oxen, thy thousands of changes of apparel, thy thousands of bulls; one cuts the throat for thee of the Smen goose, one shoots for thee the Therp goose." In Pepi I., line 83, we have: "Suten ṭā ḥetep. ”

“ M. Maspero also describes the Sa as a sort of “magnetic fluid,” or “aura,” which could be transmitted to a person by laying hands on him, or by making passes over the nape of the neck or the spinal column. The phrase setep sa , means something like to “make passes.” ”