f religion to the Egyptian was to secure the favour of the
god. There is but little trace of negative prayer to avert evils or
deprecate evil influences, but rather of positive prayer for concrete
favours. On the part of kings this is usually of the Jacob type,
offering to provide temples and services to the god in return for
material prosperity. The Egyptian was essentially self-satisfied, he
had no confession to make of sin or wrong, and had no thought of
pardon. In the judgment he boldly averred that he was free of the
forty-two sins that might prevent his entry into the kingdom of Osiris.
If he failed to establish his innocence in the weighing of his heart,
there was no other plea, but he was consumed by fire and by a
hippopotamus, and no hope remained for him.

{12}

CHAPTER III

THE FUTURE LIFE

The various beliefs of the Egyptians regarding the future life are so
distinct from each other and so incompatible, that they may be
classified into groups more readily than the theology; thus they serve
to indicate the varied sources of the religion.

The most simple form of belief was that of the continued existence of
the soul in the tomb and about the cemetery. In Upper Egypt at present
a hole is left at the top of the tomb chamber; and I have seen a woman
remove the covering of the hole, and talk down to her deceased husband.
Also funeral offerings of food and drink, and even beds, are still
placed in the tombs. A similar feeling, without any precise beliefs,
doubtless prompted the earlier forms of provision for the dead. The
soul wandered around the tomb seeking sustenance, and was fed by the
{13} goddess who dwelt in the thick sycomore trees that overshadowed
the cemetery. She is represented as pouring out drink for the _ba_ and
holding a tray of cakes for it to feed upon. In the grave we find this
belief shown by the jars of water, wine, and perhaps other liquids, the
stores of corn, the geese, haunches and heads of oxen, the cakes, and
dates, and pomegranates which were laid by the dead. In an early
king's tomb there might be many rooms full of these offerings. There
were also the weapons for defence and for the chase, the toilet
objects, the stores of clothing, the draughtsmen, and even the
literature of papyri buried with the dead. The later form of this
system was the representation of all these offerings in sculpture and
drawing in the tomb. This modification probably belongs to the be