CHAPTER V.


THE RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALITY.

In perusing the literature of the ancient Egyptians one of the first
things which forces itself upon the mind of the reader is the frequency
of allusions to the future life or to things which appertain thereto.
The writers of the various religious and other works, belonging to all
periods of Egyptian history, which have come down to us, tacitly assume
throughout that those who once have lived in this world have "renewed"
their life in that which is beyond the grave, and that they still live
and will live until time shall be no more. The Egyptian belief in the
existence of Almighty God is old, so old that we must seek for its
beginnings in pre-dynastic times; but the belief in a future life is
very much older, and its beginnings must be as old, at least, as the
oldest human remains which have been found in Egypt. To attempt to
measure by years the remoteness of the period when these were committed
to the earth, is futile, for no date that could be given them is likely
to be even approximately correct, and they may as well date from B.C.
12,000 as from B.C. 8000. Of one fact, however, we may be quite certain;
that is to say, that the oldest human remains that have been found in
Egypt bear upon them traces of the use of bitumen, which proves that the
Egyptians at the very beginning of their stay in the valley of the Nile
made some attempt to preserve their dead by means of mummification.
[Footnote: See J. de Morgan, _Ethnographie Préhistorique_, Paris, 1897,
p. 189.] If they were, as many think, invaders who had made their way
across Arabia and the Red Sea and the eastern desert of the Nile, they
may have brought the idea and habit of preserving their dead with them,