Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/384

 276 NOTES UPON A MUMMY OF THE was the more to be regretted, as they would have decided the age of the mummy. After this the bandages consisted of a series of layers neatly applied, with some exceedingly coarse ones used as pads to fill up the vacant spaces — after which the body was protected by another cartonage of layers of linen joined with gums, similar to the preceding, but not quite so thick, and on removing this, by an incision made all round the side of the mummy, there was found between the bandages beneath, a papyrus with baguettes and writing in the hieratic character, all in black ink, wrapt round the legs, two or three times. The character of the papyrus was fine, the colour white, the texture good, the drawing careful, and the script remark- able for that neat squareness seen in documents about the Ptolemaic and Bubastite period, more conventional and not so bold as the earlier handwritings.^ The vignettes that remained, represented a figure of the god Ra, hawk-headed, and wearing the urseated disk, seated on a throne, apparently in one of those judgment scenes which occur on papyri of this epoch, — such as will be seen in the last plate but one of Denon's work. Two figures, females, one called Sltai, " length," — the other Nebtshai, "the mistress of length," — evidently, from their names, some of the Hours which tow the Boat of the Sun in the papyri which represent the solar processions through the heavens, and which are solar litanies, called 7« sha cm sha, " the book of being in the Place of Gates," or " Firmament," seemed part of a second papyrus. Of the text, too little was unfolded to make out, except such phrases n.%jet an Neb t en a, " said the lady of the house, ' a proof that the mummy was that, which it professed to be, of a female. Continuing to unroll the bandages, the body was found in a condition so exceedingly brittle, owing to the bitumen and other drugs having penetrated the cancel- lated structure of the bones, that the head came off close from below the cerebellum. The brain had been removed through the nostrils, and the whole of the inside of the skull plugged with linen cloth. The head was not entirely denuded of its bandages, as I shall have occasion to mention. The whole of the bandages were exceedingly charred, but as the •' See the Papyri of Osorkon, priest of Dviiastv. Dciion, Voyage, PI. I ."7, Uft; Aineii,aUofSlii'.sii:iK,hij,'liprifstof Allien, Ct^ albo' Ibid., 1^6, 1:57. grandson of a king imniud Osorkon, 2_'ncl