Thebes went through the processes of mummifying, lay on the bare desert-
land at some distance from his hovel, southwards from the House of Seti
at the foot of the mountain. They occupied by themselves a fairly large
space, enclosed by a rough wall of dried mud-bricks.

The bodies were brought in through the great gate towards the Nile, and
delivered to the kolchytes,--[The whole guild of embalmers]--while the
priests, paraschites, and tariclleutes,--[Salter of the bodies]--
bearers and assistants, who here did their daily work, as well as
innumerable water-carriers who came up from the Nile, loaded with skins,
found their way into the establishment by a side gate.

At the farthest northern building of wood, with a separate gate, in which
the orders of the bereaved were taken, and often indeed those of men
still in active life, who thought to provide betimes for their suitable
interment.

The crowd in this house was considerable. About fifty men and women were
moving in it at the present moment, all of different ranks, and not only
from Thebes but from many smaller towns of Upper Egypt, to make purchases
or to give commissions to the functionaries who were busy here.

This bazaar of the dead was well supplied, for coffins of every form
stood up against the walls, from the simplest chest to the richly gilt
and painted coffer, in form resembling a mummy. 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.