Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 25--Liturgy of Funeral Offerings.pdf/69

  Book of the Dead. In the Judgment it was he who “weighed words,” and who weighed the heart of the dead man in the Great Balance, and reported the result to Osiris. It is the “words” of Unȧs which are in question here, and in Egypt both gods and men judged a man by his “words.” The sprinkling of the water caused Thoth to carry the words of evil uttered by Unȧs, and place them in the hand of the god.

The words which were said by the Kher ḥeb here, as in many other places in the Liturgy, were to be repeated four times. The Egyptians divided the earth into four quarters, over each of which a god presided, and in order to secure for the dead permission to move about freely through these quarters of the world, formulae, whether of blessing or of banning, were repeated four times, once for each god, and certain offerings were made in quadruplicate. The gods of the four quarters of the world at the time when this Liturgy was drawn up were Horus, Set, Thoth, and Sep, and they were probably the gods of the four cardinal points also. Later, however, their places seem to have been taken by the four sons of Horus, Mesthȧ, Ḥāpi, Ṭuamutef and Qebḥsennuf, each of whom presided over one of the four pillars that held up the sky. The priest by walking round the mummy or the statue four times, and sprinkling water as he went, bestowed upon the Ka the power to journey into all parts of heaven and earth, and made him a pure being in respect of the four gods of the four quarters of the earth. 