volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

390 Beliefs about Mummies.
day in the " Anu of heaven," i.e., the celestial Heliopolis.
Believers in Osiris never regarded mummies as wholly
dead objects, and among the modern Egyptians I have
met both Copts and Mushms of the better classes, who
treat them with respect, and regard them with a kind of
fear, because they think that their souls return to them
on certain occasions. The Egyptian fallHh scrupulously
avoids the neighbourhood of tombs after sunset, for he
has no wish to meet the souls of dead unbelievers, who
may have lost their way and are unable to find their
bodies. No Sudani man would stay with me among
the pyramids of Jabal Barkal or Meroe after sunset,
for the natives at both places were convinced that the
souls of the " muluk," or " kings," come forth from their
tombs under the pyramids in the " cool of the day "
to " smell the air " and to " look about a bit " and talk
with each other. Maspero told me that when the Der
al-Bahari mummies were first exhibited in the Bulak
Museum he could not get any attendant to remain in
the room alone with them in the late afternoon. He
told me also that the watchmen of the " magazine "
{i.e., the place where unexhibited antiquities were kept)
left their posts long before sunset, and that, in consequence,
many valuable objects had been stolen from it
by thieves who knew their habit. On the other hand,
the Der al-Bahari mummies were not always regarded
as objects of fear, and they were visited by many Muslim
women with a very definite purpose. These women
believed that if they could touch the mummified remains
of any of the great kings they would gain strength from
that touch to conceive and bring forth " strong sons like
Pharaoh." Some of them tried to push off the looselyfitting
covers of the cases in which the mummies were
kept and steal a bit of skin for themselves, and others
cajoled the watchmen or bribed them to steal the coveted
object for them. Those who succeeded carried off their
treasure and enclosed it in a small gold or silver case,
and wore it as an amulet. Maspero told me that several
native ladies of high degree had begged him to obtain
for them joints from the little fingers of mummies, so