Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/187

 English or French sentence written without it would be simply unintelligible to the ordinary English or French reader. I cannot therefore see what there is in the system of Egyptian writing which is to prevent the Maxims of Ptahhotep, written in the age of the Pyramids, or the tales in the Berlin papyri, written more than two thousand years before Christ, from being considered literature as truly as they would be if they were now written in English, French or Italian.

The Book of the Dead.

The majority of the manuscripts which have been recovered from the tombs contain chapters of the collection generally known under the title of the Book of the Dead. These chapters, though apparently handed down at first by tradition, were committed to writing at a very early period. The vignettes which are found on so many copies, and which represent the burial procession, suggested to Champollion the name of the "Funeral Ritual." Lepsius, however, pointed out the fact that the chapters are supposed to be recited by the deceased person himself in the nether world. M. de Rougé, though not objecting to the title "Book of the Dead," proposed by Lepsius as more appropriate, nevertheless defended the use of the term "Ritual" on the ground that many chapters contain prescriptions for parts of the funeral, and certain prayers are formally