THE BOOK OF THE DEAD PREFACE.

perpendicular rows between rules, and hieratic texts in horizontal lines; both the hieroglyphics and the
hieratic characters lack the boldness of the writing of the Theban period, and exhibit the characteristics of
a conventional hand. The titles of the chapters, catchwords, the words ### which introduce a variant
reading, etc., are sometimes written in red. The vignettes are usually traced in black outline, and form a
kind of continuous border above the text. In good papyri, however, the scene forming the XVIth Chapter,
the scene of the Fields of Peace (Chapter CX.), the judgment scene (Chapter CXXV.), the vignette of
Chapter CXLVIII., the scene forming Chapter CLI. (the sepulchral chamber), and the vignette of Chapter
CLXI., fill the whole width of the inscribed portion of the papyrus, and are painted in somewhat crude
colours. In some papyri the disk on the head of the hawk of Horus is covered with gold leaf, instead of
being painted red as is usual in older papyri. In the Græco-Roman period both texts and vignettes are
very carelessly executed, and it is evident that they were written and drawn by ignorant workmen in the
quickest and most careless way possible. In this period also certain passages of the text were copied in
hieratic and Demotic upon small pieces of papyri which were buried with portions of the bodies of the
dead, and upon narrow bandages of coarse linen in which they were swathed.
{p. xlviii}
THE LEGEND OF OSIRIS.
The main features of the Egyptian religion constant.
The chief features of the Egyptian religion remained unchanged from the Vth and VIth dynasties down to
the period when the Egyptians embraced Christianity, after the preaching of St. Mark the Apostle in
Alexandria, A.D. 69, so firmly had the early beliefs taken possession of the Egyptian mind; and the
Christians in Egypt, or Copts as they are commonly called, the racial descendants of the ancient
Egyptians, seem never to have succeeded in divesting themselves of the superstitious and weird
mythological conceptions which they inherited from their heathen ancestors. It is not necessary here to
repeat the proofs, of this fact which M. Amélineau has brought together,[1] or to adduce evidence from
the lives of the saints, martyrs and ascetics; but it is of interest to note in passing that the translators of
the New Testament into Coptic rendered the Greek {Greek a!'dhs} by ###, amenti, the name which the
ancient Egyptians gave to the abode of man after death,[3] and that the Copts peopled it with beings
whose prototypes are found on the ancient monuments.
Persistence of the legend of Osiris and the belief in the resurrection.
The chief gods mentioned in the pyramid texts are identical with those whose names are given on tomb,
coffin and papyrus in the latest dynasties; and if the names of the great cosmic gods, such as Ptah and
Khnemu, are of rare occurrence, it should be remembered that the gods of the dead must naturally
occupy the chief place in this literature which concerns the dead. Furthermore, we find that the doctrine
of eternal life and of the resurrection of a glorified or transformed body, based upon the ancient story of
the resurrection of Osiris after a cruel death and horrible mutilation, inflicted by the powers of evil, was
the same in all periods, and that the legends of the most ancient times were accepted without material
alteration or addition in the texts of the later dynasties.
[1. Le Christianisme chez les anciens Coptes, in Revue des Religions, t, xiv., Paris, 1886, PP, 308-45
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