Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/42

 the most extensive Egyptian works which has been recovered is the great medical papyrus published by Dr. Ebers. That work, however, though a medical one, and descending to minute details about cosmetics and even to receipts against vermin, is essentially a religious book. The medical prescriptions are subordinate to the prayers or religious observances which give them their efficacy. If we wish to keep clear of religion in studying Egyptian literature, we shall have to confine ourselves to mathematics. There is on the staircase of the British Museum a papyrus treating of various kinds of mathematical problems, and I confess that in studying it I was surprised to find it of so purely secular a character as it really is. It is only at the very end that we meet at last with a mention of prayers for fine weather and a high Nile.

But the principal reason why most of the documents which have come down to us are of a religious character is, that all the ancient monuments of Egypt have perished except some which were necessarily of a religious nature—the temples and the tombs. The palaces of kings and nobles have utterly disappeared. Our knowledge of Egyptian civil architecture is derived from paintings in the tombs. Many texts of historical interest have been preserved, but their original intention was not historical, but religious. For us, the royal texts of Karnak, Abydos and Saqâra, are of historical value; but they have a purely religious