dles of wrappings have kept their
form to the present day and it seems as if the mummy were still
intact; but an examination of the interior shows only loose
bones. Successful mummification appears among better-class people
in the New Empire for the first time and becomes a general custom
in the Late Period. The processes of successful mummification
necessitated the practical destruction of the body.

In the Middle Empire, which is the period under discussion, the
process of mummification had reached a middle stage, and, while
we are unable to explain exactly the causal relationship, it is
clear that this advance in the treatment of the body accompanied
a spread of the belief in the Osirian immortality.

VII. THE NEW EMPIRE

The New Empire (1600-1200 B.C.) was the great period of foreign
conquest. The Hyksos, Asiatic invaders, had held Egypt for a
century or more. The Theban princes who drove them out became
kings of Egypt, and followed them into Asia. With an army trained
in war by the long struggle with the Hyksos, the Egyptian kings,
having tasted the sweetness of the spoils of war, entered on the
conquest of western Asia and the Sudan. The plunder of both these
regions poured into Egypt. Under Thothmes III an annual campaign
was conducted into Syria to bring back the spoils and the
tribute. Foreign slaves and the products of foreign handicraft
were for sale in every market-place. The treasury was filled to
overflowing. A large share was assigned to Amon, the god of the
Theban family. Temples were built for him; estates established
for the maintenance of his rites; thousands of priests enrolled
for the service of his properties. The god became, in a material
sense, the greatest god of Egypt, the national god; and his
priesthood became the most powerful organization in the kingdom.
The high priest of Amon usurped the power of the king and finally
supplanted him. Such was the period in which the next great
development of the Egyptian idea of immortality is to be noted--
a period of priestly activity in the beginning and of priestly
domination in the end.

The priests are the scribes, the men of learning. They have the
lore of all magic, medicine, rules of conduct, religious rites.
It is not mere chance, therefore, that the New Empire was marked
by a great increase of magic in all its forms--texts and
symbolic objects--and by a great development in the knowledge
of the other world. In some