before the great
hygienic changes introduced into Cairo by Ismail Pacha, i.e.
from August 1, 1858, to July 31, 1859, and from May 24,
1865, to May 16, 1866, and for the two years from April 2,
1869, to March 21, 1870, and from April 2, 1870, to March
21, 1871.

Each of the corpses,moreover, necessitated the employment of at least
half a dozen workmen to wash it, cut it open, soak it, dry it, and
apply the usual bandages before placing the amulets upon the canonically
prescribed places, and using the conventional prayers.

[Illustration: 007.jpg HEAD OF A THEBAN MUMMY]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

There was fastened to the breast, immediately below the neck, a stone
or green porcelain scarab, containing an inscription which was to be
efficacious in preventing the heart, "his heart which came to him from
his mother, his heart from the time he was upon the earth," from rising
up and witnessing against the dead man before the tribunal of Osiris.*
There were placed on his fingers gold or enamelled rings, as talismans
to secure for him the true voice.**

* The manipulations and prayers were prescribed in the "Book
of Embalming."

** The prescribed gold ring was often replaced by one of
blue or green enamel.

The body becomes at last little more than a skeleton, with a covering of
yellow skin which accentuates the anatomical, details, but the head, on
the other hand, still preserves, where the operations have been properly
conducted, its natural form. The cheeks have fallen in slightly, the
lips and the fleshy parts of the nose have become thinner and more
drawn than during life, but the general expression of the face remains
unaltered.

[Illustration: 008.jpg THE MANUFACTURE AND PAINTING OF THE CARTONNAGE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Rosellini.

A mask of pitch was placed over the visage to preserve it, above
which was adjusted first a piece of linen and then a series of bands
impregnated with resin, which increased the size of the head to twofold
its ordinary bulk. The trunk and limbs were bound round with a first
covering of some pliable soft stuff, warm to the touch. Coarsely
powdered natron was scattered here and there over the body as an
additional preservative. Packets placed between the legs, the arms and
the hips, and in the eviscerated abdomen, contained the heart, spleen,
the dried brain, the hair, and the cuttings