Mummies of Priests
It has been well said that “Egypt is a façade of an immense sepulchre.” During a period of between four and five thousand years the vast population of the Nile valley continued to embalm and secrete their dead, interring them according to the customs of successive epochs. Statues, weapons, amulets, jewels, furniture, food and even written documents on papyrus, leather and linen. According to Egyptian belief, every human being consisted of three distinct parts which during the life time were closely united: First, the body; second, the “sahu” or soul; and third, the “khu,” an emanation of the divine intelligence. At death these elements may be separated but remained intact as to quantity and quality. In due course of time the “sahu” might return to the mummy. The “khu” must undergo a period of purification in the regions of the blessed and finally with the “sahu” be reunited to the dead body which its mummification had preserved from decay. “The valley of the Nile,” says Miss Edward, “is the great museum of which the contents are perhaps one-third or one-fourth part only above ground. The rest is all below waiting to be discovered.” Numberless mummies have been taken from the mounds.
The priests of the old days lie silently waiting the solution of the great mystery which they represented—grim figures “sealed from the moth and the owl and the flitter mouse.”
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