As we explained when the visitor was in the Egyptian room, better
known as the Mummy room, up stairs, in the course of his second visit,
the ancient Egyptians, when they embalmed their dead, extracted the
viscera, and deposited them, apart from the body, in four vases, over
which the genii of the dead severally presided. Thus every mummy had,
properly, four sepulchral vases; and the collection arranged in the
saloon amply illustrates the varieties of ornament expended upon them.
As the visitor has probably forgotten the particular parts assigned
separately to the genii, it may be well to repeat here that Amset (who
is human-headed,) had the stomach and large intestines under his
especial protection Tuautmutf with his jackal-head presided over the
heart and lungs; Kebhsnuf, with the fierce head of the widely
worshipped hawk, took the gall, bladder, and liver, in charge; while
the baboon-headed Hapi reserved to himself the care of the small
intestines. There does not appear to have been any supernatural
protector of the brains, which, as we have noticed, were drawn through
the nose by the embalmer. These vases are of the most ancient times,
chiefly before the advent of Alexander, after which event the people
began to enclose the entrails of their dead in wax cloths, and
fastening to the various parts the appropriate genius, to have been
content to deposit them in the same case with the body. The vases
which the visitor is about to examine are carved in different
materials, the more costly and highly finished being of arragonite,
and the less important, in wood, stone, or clay. They are all
ornamented with appropriate inscriptions, consisting of exhortations
of the deities to the dead, or comforting syllables from the genii of
the intestines to the departed. The visitor will not care to examine
all these vases in detail, nor would any purpose be served were the
unscientific spectator to hover in this corner for a whole day; it is
sufficient for him to understand the passage these vases occupy in the
ancient history of Egypt, and to notice cursorily the degree of
excellence displayed in the manufacture of them. He will find the
hawk-head of Kebhsnuf in one direction, and the baboon-head of Hapi in
another, and from these pictorial revelations he will know what part
of a deceased Egyptian was deposited in each vase.
With these preliminary words we may leave him to examine the
collection, reserving to ourselves the task of pointing his attention
to one or two of the more remarkable specimens. First let the visitor
notice the complete set of four, in arragonite, marked 614-17. These
were for the internal parts of prince Amen-em-api, the eldest son of
Rameses II., and as the visitor will notice, have severally their
presiding genius, with sacred inscriptions. Another remarkable vase is
that in arragonite marked 609, with its cover fashioned in the form of
a human head, and the remains of an inscription which had been laid on
with a thick kind of colour. That marked 629 with the jackal-head of
Tuantmutf, bears an inscription in which the standard-bearer of Plato
named Hara, part of whose body was inclosed, is reminded that the
genius attends him. One (635) of arragonite has a green waxy paint,
and belonged to a royal bow-bearer of the nineteenth dynasty, named
Renfu. There is another complete set, which do not appear to have been
opened, marked 636-39. The arragonite vases are the most expensive,
and, as we have remarked the most highly finished; but the visitor may
notice also those in coarser material.
Having sufficiently examined these vases, the visitor may take a
general glance at the contents of the saloon, and prepare to examine
the Sphinxes, and colossal figures that are crowded into it. In these
he will recognise only colossal copies of many of the little figures
he saw in the Mummy room up stairs. He will see huge granite
representations of the strange gods and goddesses to which the
ancients devoutly knelt; and in many of these forms he will trace a
placid beauty that reveals often the soul of the sculptor fettered by
the strange formulas of his religion. The visitor having examined the
high reliefs on the tablets and sepulchral monuments of the ancient
Egyptians, has now to examine the specimens that remain of their
statuary. But first of