Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 25--Liturgy of Funeral Offerings.pdf/30

 driven, by hunger and thirst to wander about the desert and eat filth and drink polluted water. Small wonder, then, is it that hunger and thirst were held in abomination by departed spirits.

In the text of Pepi I. the king is told that he shall receive each day a thousand loaves of bread, a thousand vessels of beer, a thousand oxen, a thousand geese, a thousand sweet things of all kinds, and a thousand changes of linen, but probably we are not intended to interpret this statement too literally, for such a series of large gifts suggests that these offerings were derived from the supply of the gods who were Pepi’s brethren in heaven. In another passage some god is entreated to give bread and beer to Pepi of the bread and beer which are everlasting.

All the above extracts are taken from texts which are cut on the walls of the chambers of the pyramids of kings Unȧs, Tetȧ, and Pepi, under the Vth and