the demotic character. But men no longer copied long selections
from the PER-T EM HRU as they had done under the XVIIIth, XIXth and
XXth dynasties, partly because the religious views of the Egyptians
had undergone a great change, and partly because a number of Books
of the Dead of a more popular character had appeared. The cult of
Osiris was triumphant everywhere, and men preferred the hymns and
litanies which dealt with his sufferings, death and resurrection to
the compositions in which the absolute supremacy of Ra and his solar
cycle of gods and goddesses was assumed or proclaimed. Thus, in the
"Lamentations of Isis" and the "Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys,"
and the "Litanies of Seker," and the "Book of Honouring Osiris," etc.,
the central figure is Osiris, and he alone is regarded as the giver
of everlasting life. The dead were no longer buried with large rolls
of papyrus filled with Chapters of the PER-T EM HRU laid in their
coffins, but with small sheets or strips of papyrus, on which were
inscribed the above compositions, or the shorter texts of the "Book
of Breathings," or the "Book of Traversing Eternity," or the "Book of
May my name flourish," or a part of the "Chapter of the Last Judgment."

Ancient Egyptian tradition asserts that the Book PER-T EM HRU was
used early in the Ist dynasty, and the papyri and coffins of the
Roman Period afford evidence that the native Egyptians still accepted
all the essential beliefs and doctrines contained in it. During the
four thousand years of its existence many additions were made to it,
but nothing of importance seems to have been taken away from it. In
the space here available it is impossible to describe in detail the
various Recensions of this work, viz., (1) the Heliopolitan, (2) the
Theban and its various forms, and (3) the Saïte; but it is proposed
to sketch briefly the main facts of the Egyptian Religion which
may be deduced from them generally, and especially from the Theban