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During the Middle Empire, the burial and offering customs show the
persistence of the old belief in life after death as on earth. Pots,
vessels, tools, weapons, ornaments, clothing, and models of scenes from
life, continue to be placed in the burial chamber. The walls of the
offering chambers of the nobles, at this time cut in the rock, still bear
representations from life carved in relief. The symbolical doors and the
offering formulas still mark the spot where the dead receive the
necessities of life from the living. All graves of every class testify to
the faith in a life after death similar to life on earth. Yet certain
modifications are apparent which are significant for the future
development of the conception of immortality: (1) the pyramid texts are
used by the provincial nobles for their own benefit; (2) Abydos assumes a
great importance as the burial place of Osiris; (3) the swathed mummy
comes into general use in burials.
The first identification of the king with Osiris in the pyramid texts
marks the conception of a better immortality for him. So, as the
possibility of a better immortality was claimed by wider and wider circles
of men, the use of the pyramid texts, or similar texts, also became wider.
In the Middle Empire, texts practically identical with the pyramid texts,
but furnished with illustrations somewhat like those of the later books of
the dead, are found in the coffins of provincial nobles.
The power of the monarchy had been weakening during the Fifth and Sixth
Dynasties, partly owing to the dissipation of national resources by royal
extravagance, partly owing to other causes. After the Sixth Dynasty, the
country was clearly in a period of economic depression; and the government
was broken up into a series of nearly independent baronies corresponding
roughly to the later division into provinces or nomes. Our material is
scanty. The tombs of very few great men have been found. But when in the
Twelfth Dynasty an abundance of material is at hand, we see, alongside the
old forms of the burial customs, the use of the pyramid texts on the
inside walls of the coffins of the great man. It was now possible for the
ba of the great landed noble to seek refuge with the gods in the
northwest heavens and share their life.
The increasing importance of Abydos as the burial place of Osiris is of
still greater significance. The tomb of a king of the First Dynasty was
identified by the priests as the actual burial place of Osiris. Many great
people made graves for themselves in the same field; or, if they lived at
a distance, built empty cenotaphs there. A great temple of Osiris stood
near by, and became the centre of the celebration of mysteries
illustrating the death and revival of Osiris. Fortunately, a certain high
official named I-kher-nofret has left us an account of the Osiris
passion-play as performed under his oversight in the nineteenth year of
Sesostris III, nearly two thousand years before Christ [See Schafer's
article, “Die Osiris-mysterien,” in Sethe's Untersuchungen zur
Geshichte Aegyptens, IV, 2, pp 1-42.]. The play began by the
procession of the statue of the jackal-god Wep-wawet (the road-opener)
going forth to help his father Osiris. Then the statue of Osiris himself
in the Neshemet boat came forth as triumphant king of the earth. Sham
battles took place referring to the conquest of the earth by Osiris. These
processions were only introductory. The principal procession took place on
the following day (or days), when Osiris went forth to his death at Nedit.
The actual death scene certainly took place in secret. But when the dead
body was found, the multitude joined in the wailing and the lamentations.
The god Thoth went forth in a boat and brought back the body of Osiris.
The body was prepared for burial and taken in funeral procession to the
grave at Peker. Osiris was avenged on his enemies in a great battle on the
water at Nedit. Finally, the god, his life revived, comes from Peker in
triumphant procession and enters his temple at Abydos.
Osiris mysteries were celebrated at other places, at least in later
times and perhaps even in the Middle Empire; but it is not easy to discern
the part these mysteries played in the Middle Empire in the beliefs of the
common people regarding their immortality. The Osiris story was one of the
most widespread in Egypt, and, powerful in its effect on the feelings of
all classes, was certain, sooner or later, to prepare the way for a
general belief in a better immortality; but if we may judge from the
burial customs, the great mass of the people still believed merely in an
underworld, Earu, a duplicate of the earthly life, but with greater
possibilities of danger and evil.
During the course of Egyptian history the position in which the body is
buried undergoes a series of remarkable changes. During the early
pre-dynastic period, the body, loosely enfolded in cloths and skins, is
laid in the grave double up on the left side, usually with the head
south (i.e. upstream). This position becomes the custom, with very few
exceptions, during the late predynastic period and the first three
dynasties. Throughout the Fourth to Sixth Dynasties, the body was in the
same position, but with the head north, loosely covered with shawls and
garments. The crouching position, with some slight modifications,
continues to be used for the poorest class down to the New Empire. Among
the Nubians, it is universal to the New Empire and customary even later in
unmixed Nubian communities. The swathed extended burials begin in Egypt in
the Fourth Dynasty, so far as remains are preserved. Some members of the
royal family of Cheops were buried in swathed wrapping, lying extended on
the left side with the knees bent. During the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties
this extended position on the side becomes customary for the better
classes; and during the Middle Empire it becomes almost universal.
The final burial position, the swathed mummy lying extended on the
back, does not become general until the New Empire, about 1600 B.C.
although it is the position hitherto regarded as the characteristic
Egyptian burial position. A few isolated cases, some of them perhaps
accidental, occur as early as the Old Empire; but in the New Empire the
extended burial on the back is practically the only one to be observed. In
other words, beginning in the predynastic period with a burial position
which may be called natural and primitive, the Egyptian gradually adopted
a position which imitated the form of the dead Osiris, the god of the
dead. Each new change is first adopted by the royal family, and is taken
up by the other classes in turn until it becomes universal. In the final
form, the mummy was a simulacrum of the dead as Osiris.
Alongside these changes in the burial position progressed the art of
preserving the body. The earliest attempts were made on the body of the
king; and the knowledge of embalming gained in preserving his body was
gradually utilized for the higher classes and finally for all but the
poorest. It seems indisputable that the royal personages of the Fourth and
Sixth Dynasties were mummified—i.e., the entrails were drawn, the body
prepared with spices and resins and wrapped tightly in cloths smeared with
resin. But the mummies of the nobles, even of this period, show no trace
of such treatment. The receptacles for the viscera are sometimes found in
their graves in the Sixth Dynasty, but are, as a rule, empty, being mere
dummy vases. Even in the Middle Empire, the preservation of the bodies of
the better classes was extremely imperfect. The bundles of wrappings have
kept their form to the present day and it seems as if the mummy were still
intact; but an examination of the interior shows only loose bones.
Successful mummification appears among better-class people in the New
Empire for the first time and becomes a general custom in the Late Period.
The processes of successful mummification necessitated the practical
destruction of the body.
In the Middle Empire, which is the period under discussion, the process
of mummification had reached a middle stage, and, while we are unable to
explain exactly the causal relationship, it is clear that this advance in
the treatment of the body accompanied a spread of the belief in the
Osirian immortality. |
