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On wooden shelves lay endless rolls of coarse and fine linen, in which the limbs of the mummies were enveloped, and which were manufactured by the people of the embalming establishment under the protection of the tutelar goddesses of weavers, Neith, Isis and Nephthys, though some were ordered from a distance, particularly from Sais.
There were also tiny images of them made in stone and amethyst and porcelain, and almost anything else, and these were frequently buried in the tombs with the mummies. Sometimes they had the name of the person with whom they were buried inscribed on the back in hieroglyphic writing, or the name of a god. These scarabs, as they are called, are bought and worn in rings and ornaments by visitors.
We were cautious, too, about the disposal of the mummies, so that, in case of need, they might serve us again: and, when all was arranged to our satisfaction, we pulled them back out of the entrance. Our manoeuvres had now attracted the attention of the besiegers who showed by their cries and movements that they were upon the alert.
Mummies have been exhumed that have red or light colored hair such as usually goes with a fair skin.
The New Guinea people, as D'Albertis found, worship the dried mummies of their fathers and husbands. A little higher in the scale we get the developed mummy-worship of Egypt and Peru, which survives even after the evolution of greater gods, from powerful kings or chieftains. Wherever the actual bodies of the dead are preserved, there also worship and offerings are paid to them.
Some of them had ornaments on their bones, some were clad in armour, and by all the men were swords, or spears, or knives, and here and there what she took to be primitive fire-arms. Certain of them also had turned into mummies in that dry air grotesque and dreadful objects from which she gladly averted her eyes.
A French writer considers that this art of preserving heads is a proof of some original connection between the New Zealanders and the ancient world; as the process is as effective as that by which the Egyptians prepared their mummies.
The place was in shadow, except for the firelight, which shone upon a table laid ready for dinner, and upon an extraordinary collection of antiquities, including a couple of mummies with gold faces arranged in their coffins against the wall.
The descent is by a narrow, rapidly sloping passage, dug in the soil, between banks of sand and broken stones. We are now completely sheltered from the bitter wind which blows across the desert, and from the dark doorway that opens before us comes a breath of air as from an oven. It is always dry and hot in the underground funeral places of Egypt, which make indeed admirable stoves for mummies.
He called to him from behind a fig-tree, and hastily whispered, while he bowed with deep respect: "My mother knows a great deal, most noble highness! The sacred Ibis It has disappeared from Egypt There were two varieties of this bird, which was sacred to Toth, and mummies of both have been found in various places. Elian states that an immortal Ibis was shown at Hermopolis.
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