Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/413

 *tions (l. iv. c. 20. 181.; l. vii. c. 16. and 25. 72.) these bandages as used in surgery. The same fillets, which were used to swathe dead bodies, were also adapted for surgical purposes. Hence a Greek Epigram (Brunck, An. iii. 169.) represents a surgeon and an undertaker. The undertaker supplies the surgeon with bandages stolen from the dead bodies, and the surgeon in return sends his patients to the undertaker!

IV. Diodorus Siculus (l. i. § 85. tom. i. p. 96.) records a tradition, that Isis put the limbs of Osiris into a wooden cow, covered with Byssina. No reason can be imagined, why cotton should have been used for such a purpose; whereas the use of fine linen to cover the hallowed remains was in perfect accordance with all the ideas and practices of the Egyptians.

V. Plutarch, in his Treatise de Iside et Osiride (Opp. ed. Stephani, 1572, vol. iv. p. 653.) says, that the priests enveloped the gilded bull, which represented Osiris, in a black sheet of Byssus. Now nothing can appear more probable, than that the Egyptians would employ for this purpose the same kind of cloth, which they always applied to sacred uses; and in addition to all the other evidence before referred to, we find Plutarch in this same treatise expressly mentioning the linen garments of the priesthood, and stating, that the priests were entombed in them after death, a fact verified at the present day by the examination of the bodies of priests found in the catacombs.

VI. The magnificent ship, constructed for Ptolemy Philopator, which is described at length in Athenæus, had a sail of the fine linen of Egypt. It is not probable, that in a vessel, every part of which was made of the best and most suitable materials, the sail would be of cotton. Moreover Hermippus describes Egypt as affording the chief supply of sails for all parts of the world : and Ezekiel represents the Tyrians as obtaining cloth from Egypt for the sails and pendants of their ships.

VII. It is recorded in the Rosetta Inscription (l. 17, 18.), that