Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 25--Liturgy of Funeral Offerings.pdf/40

 very early period in the history of Egypt the priests drew up a List of the offerings which it was thought right to offer to the dead, and that they composed a series of formulae which were to be repeated by the officiating priests when they presented the offerings to the dead. This List, with the formulae, was handed down from generation to generation, and was extant in the Roman Period.

In primitive times it is tolerably certain that when the living made offerings to the dead, their sole idea was to provide the spirits with nourishment sufficient to enable them to reach the place where the spirits dwelt in the Other World. As time went on, however, it was thought that the giving of food, and drink, and apparel to the dead, would benefit those who gave them when it was their turn to depart from this world, and proof of this is found in a text cut on the alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I., a king of the XIXth Dynasty. On this fine monument we have an illustrated copy of a “Guide” to the Other World, in which the state and condition of those who dwell there are. described. This “Guide” is divided into twelve sections, and the texts tell us what beings live in each, how they live, and how they employ their time. The general deduction to be made from them is that under the XIXth Dynasty the Egyptians believed that the bodies, souls, and spirits of the wicked were destroyed, that those of the good were rewarded with everlasting life and great felicity, and that the offerings made by men in this world went