body to rest there. The body must therefore be kept intact, and so the
Egyptians learned to embalm it. The corpse was filled with spices,
drenched in a bath of natron, wound with bandages and thus transformed
into a mummy. The mummy encased in a coffin of wood or plaster was
laid in the tomb with every provision necessary to its life.

=Book of the Dead.=--A book was deposited with the mummy, the Book of
the Dead, which explains what the soul ought to say in the other world
when it makes its defence before the tribunal of Osiris: "I have never
committed fraud; ... I have never vexed the widow; ... I have never
committed any forbidden act; ... I have never been an idler; ... I
have never taken the slave from his master; ... I never stole the
bread from the temples; ... I never removed the provisions or the
bandages of the dead; I never altered the grain measure; ... I never
hunted sacred beasts; I never caught sacred fish; ... I am pure; ... I
have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the
naked; I have sacrificed to the gods, and offered funeral feasts to
dead." Here we see Egyptian morality: observance of ceremonies,
respect for everything pertaining to the gods, sincerity, honesty, and
beneficence.


THE ARTS

=Industry.=--The Egyptians were the first to practice the arts
necessary to a civilized people. From the first dynasty, 3,000[13]
years B.C., paintings on the tomb exhibit men working, sowing,
harvesting, beating and winnowing grain; we have representations of
herds of cattle, sheep, geese, swine; of persons richly clothed,
processions, feasts where the harp is played--almost the same life