Note 230 — Chapter XXI · THEBES.

There is in one of the papyri of the Louvre a very curious illustration, representing—first, the funeral procession of one Neb-Set, deceased; second, the interior of the sepulcher, with the mummy, the offerings, and the furniture of the tomb, elaborately drawn and colored. Among the objects here shown are two torches, three vases, a coffer, a mirror, a Kohl bottle, a pair of sandals, a staff, a vase for ointment, a perfume bottle and an ablution jar. “These objects, all belonging to the toilette (for the coffer would have contained clothing), were placed in the tomb for that day of waking which the popular belief promised to the dead. The tomb was, therefore, furnished like the abodes of the living.”—Translated from T. Devéria, “Catalogue des Manuscrits Égyptiens du Louvre:” Paris, 1875, p. 80. The plan of the sepulcher of Neb-Set is also drawn upon this papyrus; and the soul of the deceased, represented as a human-headed bird, is shown flying down toward the mummy. A fine sarcophagus in the Boulak Museum (No. 84) is decorated in like manner with a representation of the mummy on its bier being visited, or finally rejoined, by the soul. I have also in my own collection a funeral papyrus vignetted on one side with this same subject; and bearing on the reverse side an architectural elevation of the monument erected over the sepulcher of the deceased.