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Updated: June 26, 2025
Dancing women became wailers; instead of dancing they tore their hair; this also brought them income. No one drank wine, no one ate meat. The highest dignitaries went in coarse garments and barefoot. From the Mediterranean to the first cataract of the Nile, from the Libyan desert to the peninsula of Sinai reigned sadness and silence.
Following a death the body is covered with good clothing and is placed in the middle of the house. Wailers sit by the corpse, fanning it to keep away flies, or making an occasional offering of food; while the friends gather to talk of the virtues of the deceased, to console the family, and to partake of the food and drink which has been provided for the gathering.
After this curse the priests lighted the torches, took the royal mummy, placed it again in its casket, and the casket in the stone sarcophagus which had the human form in its general outlines. Then, in spite of the shrieks, the despair, and the resistance of wailers, they bore that immense weight toward the tomb chamber.
Early the next morning, the widow, closely guarded by the wailers, goes to the river, throws her headband into the water, and then goes in herself. As she sinks in the water, an old man throws a bundle of burning rice-straw on her. "The water will wash away some of the sorrow, and the fire will make her thoughts clear."
It was a piteous spectacle, reminding one of the professional and hired wailers in Palestine, where "the mourners go about the streets," uttering dismal lamentations which can be bought for money. Far be it from me to suggest that such was the lamentation which we heard that day, for there is reason to believe that in this case the deceased was respected and beloved.
Because she did not cry out was no sign that she was not hurt; and because she did not wither and die of her wounds was only proof of her strength of soul. The weak wail and the weak succumb; the strong persist and a world of wailers and weaklings calls them hard, insensible, coarse.
Advancing to the music of various regiments were detachments of female wailers, choruses of singers, all the guilds of artisans and merchants, deputations from some tens of provinces with their gods and banners, deputations from more than ten nations which kept up relations with Egypt. And again walkers' music and priestly choruses.
Immediately we were greeted by the "wailers" and lepers, this was my first sight of the loathsome leprosy. Our guide had supplied himself with a quantity of small change. Twenty-five cents of our money made about a quart of their small change. A moment later we met the funeral cortege of a rich merchant. More wailers followed, then came the wives. It made a strange impression.
Since Khonsu of Thebes was loved by him greatly, the god has permitted the sovereign to reach that west, the world of the generations of his servants." Wailers. "O Thou who hast been attended by so many servitors, Thou art now in the laud ruled by loneliness. Thou who hadst splendid robes and didst love spotless linen art lying now in the garments of yesterday!"
The function is one that belongs naturally to priests and priestesses; and, while in the course of time, the connection with the temple of those who acted as wailers became less formal, it is doubtful whether that connection was ever entirely cut off. The 'dirge singers, male and female, referred to in the story of Ishtar's journey were in the service of some temple.
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