volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

39^ Great Importance of the Name.
ago an archseologist purchased from a friend of mine
at Luxor for a very large sum of money the four
" Canopic " jars in blue glazed faience which contained
the viscera of Rameses II. These were taken to Paris,
where, as I heard subsequently, their contents were
examined by some great medical expert, who cut sections
from the heart of Rameses II, and proved to an excited
and enthusiastic audience that the great king had suffered
from some form of heart disease which he was able to
identify. Nothing of the kind has ever happened to
any of the mummified remains in the British Museum.
The Egyptian prayed fervently and unceasingly
against all these possible, nay probable, evils, as any
one can see who takes the trouble to read the charms,
spells, incantations and prayers which were written on his
cof&n and amulets, and in the copy of the Book of the
Dead which was buried with him. In the British
Museum he is placed beyond the reach of aU such evils.
The Egyptian also prayed that his name might germinate,
i.e., endure and flourish, and be remembered in perpetuity
by the living, and on the funerary equipment of a person
of any importance the name of the deceased is mentioned
scores of times. Without a name how could he be
introduced into the Judgment Hall of Osiris ? Anubis
and his fellow-gods would make short work of a " nameless
ghost." Moreover, if his name was erased from his
tomb and his mummy, how could his heart-soul, when
it went to visit him, find his tomb and identify the body
which it had once inhabited ? In this matter also his
mummy is assisted by the British Museum during its
sojourn within its walls. For at the feet of each mummy
there is placed a label on which are set forth the name of
the deceased, and all important facts concerning him,
provided that these can be obtained from the inscriptions
on his mummy or coffin or any object of his funerary
equipment. The inscriptions on Egyptian funerary stelae
prove that the Egyptian earnestly hoped that those
among the living who " loved life and hated death "
would visit the place where his mummy would lie, and
read his name, and so remember him, for the man whose