During the Middle Empire, the burial and offering customs show
the persistence of the old belief in life after death as on
earth. Pots, vessels, tools, weapons, ornaments, clothing, and
models of scenes from life, continue to be placed in the burial
chamber. The walls of the offering chambers of the nobles, at
this time cut in the rock, still bear representations from life
carved in relief. The symbolical doors and the offering formulas
still mark the spot where the dead receive the necessities of
life from the living. All graves of every class testify to the
faith in a life after death similar to life on earth. Yet certain
modifications are apparent which are significant for the future
development of the conception of immortality: (1) the pyramid
texts are used by the provincial nobles for their own benefit;
(2) Abydos assumes a great importance as the burial place of
Osiris; (3) the swathed mummy comes into general use in burials.
The first identification of the king with Osiris in the pyramid
texts marks the conception of a better immortality for him. So,
as the possibility of a better immortality was claimed by wider
and wider circles of men, the use of the pyramid texts, or
similar texts, also became wider. In the Middle Empire, texts
practically identical with the pyramid texts, but furnished with
illustrations somewhat like those of the later books of the dead,
are found in the coffins of provincial nobles.
The power of the monarchy had been weakening during the Fifth and
Sixth Dynasties, partly owing to the dissipation of national
resources by royal extravagance, partly owing to other causes.
After the Sixth Dynasty, the country was clearly in a period of
economic depression; and the government was broken up into a
series of nearly independent baronies corresponding roughly to
the later division into provinces or nomes. Our material is
scanty. The tombs of very few great men have been found. But when
in the Twelfth Dynasty an abundance of material is at hand, we
see, alongside the old forms of the burial customs, the use of
the pyramid texts on the inside walls of the coffins of the great
man. It was now possible for the _ba_ of the great landed noble
to seek refuge with the gods in the northwest heavens and share
their life.
The increasing importance of Abydos as the burial place of Osiris
is of still greater significance. The tomb of a king of the First
Dynasty was identified by the priests as the actual burial place
of Osiris. Many great people made graves for themselves in the
same field; or, if they lived at a distance, built empty
cenotaphs there. A great temple of Osiris stood near by, and
became the centre of the celebration of mysteries illustrating
the death and revival of Osiris. Fortunately, a certain high
official named I-kher-nofret has left us an account of the Osiris
passion-play as performed under his oversight in the nineteenth
year of Sesostris III, nearly two thousand years before Christ
[See Schafer's article, "Die Osiris-mysterien," in Sethe's
_Untersuchungen zur Geshichte Aegyptens_, IV, 2, pp 1-42.]. The
play began by the procession of the statue of the jackal-god
Wep-wawet (the road-opener) going forth to help his father
Osiris. Then the statue of Osiris himself in the Neshemet boat
came forth as triumphant king of the earth. Sham battles took
place referring to the conquest of the earth by Osiris. These
processions were only introductory. The principal procession took
place on the following day (or days), when Osiris went forth to
his death at Nedit. The actual death scene certainly took place
in secret. But when the dead body was found, the multitude joined
in the wailing and the lamentations. The god Thoth went forth in
a boat and brought back the body of Osiris. The body was prepared
for burial and taken in funeral procession to the grave at Peker.
Osiris was avenged on his enemies in a great battle on the water
at Nedit. Finally, the god, his life revived, comes from Peker in
triumphant procession and enters his temple at Abydos.
Osiris mysteries were celebrated at other places, at least in
later times and perhaps even in the Middle Empire; but it is not
easy to discern the part these mysteries played in the Middle
Empire in the beliefs of the common people regarding their
immortality. The Osiris story was one of the most widespread in
Egypt, and, powerful in its effect on the feelings of all
classes, was certain, sooner or later, to prepare the way for a
general belief in a better immortality; but if we may judge from
the burial customs, the great mass of the people still believed
merely in an underworld, Earu, a duplicate of the earthly life,
but with greater possibilities of danger and evil.
During the course of Egyptian history the position in which the
body is buried undergoes a series of remarkable changes. During
the early pre-dynastic period, the body, loosely enfolded in
cloths and skins, is laid in the grave double up on the left
side, _usually_ with the head south (i.e. upstream). This
position becomes the custom, with very few exceptions, during the
late predynastic period and the first three dynasties. Throughout
the Fourth to Sixth Dynasties, the body was in the same position,
but with the head north, loosely covered with shawls and
garments. The crouching position, with some slight modifications,
continues to be used for the poorest class down to the New
Empire. Among the Nubians, it is universal to the New Empire and
customary even later in unmixed Nubian communities. The swathed
extended burials begin in Egypt in the Fourth Dynasty, so far as
remains are preserved. Some members of the royal family of Cheops
were buried in swathed wrapping, lying extended on the left side
with the knees bent. During the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties this
extended position on the side becomes customary for the better
classes; and during the Middle Empire it becomes almost
universal.
The final burial position, the swathed mummy lying extended on
the back, does not become general until the New Empire, about
1600 B.C. although it is the position hitherto regarded as the
characteristic Egyptian burial position. A few isolated cases,
some of them perhaps accidental, occur as early as the Old
Empire; but in the New Empire the extended burial on the back is
practically the only one to be observed. In other words,
beginning in the predynastic period with a burial position which
may be called natural and primitive, the Egyptian gradually
adopted a position which imitated the form of the dead Osiris,
the god of the dead. Each new change is first adopted by the
royal family, and is taken up by the other classes in turn until
it becomes universal. In the final form, the mummy was a
simulacrum of the dead as Osiris.
Alongside these changes in the burial position progressed the art
of preserving the body. The earliest attempts were made on the
body of the king; and the knowledge of embalming gained in
preserving his body was gradually utilized for the higher classes
and finally for all but the poorest. It seems indisputable that
the royal personages of the Fourth and Sixth Dynasties were
mummified--i.e., the entrails were drawn, the body prepared
with spices and resins and wrapped tightly in cloths smeared with
resin. But the mummies of the nobles, even of this period, show
no trace of such treatment. The receptacles for the viscera are
sometimes found in their graves in the Sixth Dynasty, but are, as
a rule, empty, being mere dummy vases. Even in the Middle Empire,
the preservation of the bodies of the better classes was
extremely imperfect. The bundles of wrappings have kept their
form to the present day and it seems as if the mummy were still
intact; but an examination of the interior shows only loose
bones. Successful mummification appears among better-class people
in the New Empire for the first time and becomes a general custom
in the Late Period. The processes of successful mummification
necessitated the practical destruction of the body.
In the Middle Empire, which is the period under discussion, the
process of mummification had reached a middle stage, and, while
we are unable to explain exactly the causal relationship, it is
clear that this advance in the treatment of the body accompanied
a spread of the belief in the Osirian immortality.