too, were the practical objects and the traditional
ceremonial objects. Life after death is still always the same as
life on earth--with the same physical needs, with the same need
of help from supernatural powers or against supernatural powers.
The spirit of the man needed the spirit of the copper axe to
swing in battle; but just as much he needed the spirit of the
flint knife to make the first cut across the throat of the spirit
bull of sacrifice. Remember this--the other world, in which
lived the spirit of the dead, was filled with the spirits or
ghosts of all things and animals. The other, the unseen, was a
duplicate of this world; all things which have shape were there
--even to the black fields and the broad river of Egypt. This is
the foundation of the Egyptian conception of immortality. Through
all the modifications and accretions of the following three
thousand years, this foundation idea is always clearly visible.
All the statues, the carved and painted tombs, all the curious
little model boats and workshops, all the painted mummies, all
the amulets, the scarabs, the little funerary statuettes,--all
this mummery which seems to be so characteristic and so
essential, is only the means to an end, and an ever changing
means to secure a successful comfortable existence of the spirit
in the life after death,--in the ghostly duplicate of life on
earth.

IV. THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD

It is clear that the effort to attain an immortality which is
merely a ghostly continuation of life on earth must reflect the
general development of Egyptian culture,--especially the
advance in arts and crafts. One of the most striking examples of
this fact is the introduction of metal working mentioned above
and the consequent placing of both flint and copper in the grave,
--the division of grave furniture into practical objects and
ceremonial objects, which is the foundation for the use of
symbolic objects in later times.

The advance in arts and crafts not only suggests new ideas of the
necessities of the spirit, but it provides the necessary
technical skill for the more effective satisfaction of all the
needs of the dead. This takes, first of all, the form of
supplying a place for the burial, which furnishes greater
security to the body and a better communication between the
living and the dead.

From the First Dynasty, say from 3300 B.C. down, as soon as the
Egyptian had mastered the use of mud-brick and wood,