Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/153

 the entire formula being repeated, or merely (as an abbreviation) "thousands of oxen, geese, bread, beer," &c.

Such is the burden of all these funereal tablets. No one tablet contains all that I have quoted, and no two tablets are exactly alike, but all are made upon the same model and contain some portions of the whole. Many centuries after the construction of a tomb, Egyptian travellers have left a record upon its walls of the splendour of the sacred abode, of the abundance of the materials which they found provided for the fulfilment of the rites for the departed, and of their own repetition of the funereal formula. The Suten-hotep-tā was supposed to have been delivered by divine revelation. An ancient text speaks of a "Suten-hotep-tā exactly corresponding to the texts of sacrificial offerings handed down by the ancients as proceeding from the mouth of God."

It was most important that a man should have a son established in his seat after him who should perform the due rites and see that they were performed by others; that he should, as it is expressed, "flourish in the children of his children." The duty of performing these rites comes immediately after that of worshipping the gods, in the enumeration of virtuous actions. It