Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 25--Liturgy of Funeral Offerings.pdf/28

 assumed that they thought that the food which they placed in graves with the dead was actually consumed. They must have known that their funerary offerings would last in the ordinary way but a short time, and it seems as if it was only intended to supply the needs of the departed on their journey to the place of departed spirits.

On tire other hand, the fact that personal ornaments were buried with the food, and flint weapons of war and the chase, suggests that the living intended them to be used lay the dead for an indefinitely long period. The primitive Egyptians appear to have thought that inanimate things possessed spirits like human beings, and if this be so it is probable that they also believed that the spirits of human beings in the Other World fed upon the spirits of the offerings made to them in this world by the living. This being so it would be necessary to renew the supply of offerings of food at regular intervals, so that the spirits of the dead might be prevented from suffering from hunger and thirst, and from dying a second time through exhaustion. There was also another side to the question of an important character. The souls of the dead who lacked food would, it was thought, be driven by hunger to the villages wherein they dwelt during their life, and would eat up such food as they found there, or, in the event of finding nothing suitable for their wants, would cause sickness, disease, and trouble. To avoid such a calamity it was necessary to make offerings at their tombs, and to propitiate them with suitable gifts