Note 600 — Chapter XX · EGYPTIANS.

The process of embalming is minutely described (Herod. ii, 85-90); the word which he uses for it is the same as that for salting meat and fish,—ταρίχευσις: compare Strabo, xvi, p. 764.

Perfect exactness of execution, mastery of the hardest stone, and undeviating obedience to certain rules of proportion, are general characteristics of Egyptian sculpture. There are yet seen in their quarries obelisks not severed from the rock, but having three of their sides already adorned with hieroglyphics; so certain were they of cutting off the fourth side with precision (Schnaase, Gesch. der Bild. Künste, i, p. 428).

All the nomes of Egypt, however, were not harmonious in their feelings respecting animals: particular animals were worshipped in some nomes which in other nomes were objects even of antipathy, especially the crocodile (Herod. ii, 69; Strabo, xvii, p. 817: see particularly the fifteenth Satire of Juvenal).