History of Embalming. Gannal Jean-Nicolas

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ let us follow the recital of ancient authors, let us endeavour to detect, not by the imagination, but by positive facts, by the study of invariable exterior conditions, the different data of the question of embalming among the Egyptians.

      In the first place, if we make allowance for all that the successive perfection of the arts, luxury, or the love of distinction could add to simple preservation, we shall arrive, with Rouelle, to this conclusion, that the work of embalming is reduced to two essential parts: first, the drying of the body, that is to say, removing the fluids and grease which they contain; secondly, to protect the body thus prepared, from external humidity and contact of the air. We have already seen all the aid which they derived from their climate to fulfil the first condition: a detailed description will teach us what their industry enabled them to add to it. As to the second, the nature of their caverns powerfully contributed.

      These vast cavities, says Pelletan, sheltered from the inundations of the Nile, have, without doubt, originally furnished the materials for the monuments of Thebes, and the architects of the day thus hollowed out the tombs of families in elevating their palaces. Their whole surface, from the entrance, even to the deepest recesses of these dark excavations, are covered with sepultures and fresco paintings. Each framed subject forms so many little pictures which touch each other, and the figures of which are not more than two or three inches in height, so that the whole extent of these double walls, the development of which is incalculable, has been the object of minute labour. The sculptures are in bas-relief, and covered with equable tints, but lively, and in very good preservation. The points of rock unconnected with the work, have been covered with a composition perfectly solid, and so durable, that, as yet, no other degradation is observable, than that produced by the efforts of some travellers to carry off fragments of it. Perspective is always wanting in these pictures; the bodies are viewed in full, the faces in profile; but the design is pure and the proportions just; we find nothing to indicate ignorance in the artist; which presumes for the Egyptians, if not great perfection in the arts, at least a great popularity in their practice. The subject of these paintings are domestic scenes, and generally followed by a funeral procession; from whence it may be inferred, that they refer to the life of the man enclosed in each of the lateral niches. The temperature of the caverns is 20° R.

      It appeared to us convenient thus to give a summary of the conditions of drying, and of the ulterior preservation, before presenting descriptions which have been more or less accurately transmitted to us, of the part that man has had in this operation.

      Herodotus, Diodorus Sicculus, and Porphyrus, who have written with the greatest detail on the funerals of the Egyptians, will afford us the first instructions.

      Herodotus. “Mourning and funerals are conducted after this manner: when a man of consideration dies, all the women of his house (oiketes) cover the head and even the face with mud; they leave the deceased in the house, girdle the middle of their bodies, bare the bosom, strike the breast, and overrun the city, accompanied by their relations. On the other side, the men also girdle themselves and strike their breasts; after this ceremony, they carry the body to the place where it is to be embalmed.”

      The following, after Diodorus Sicculus, (book 1st, vol. i. p. 102, § xcii.) is the ceremony of sepulture among the Egyptians: “The relatives fix the day for the obsequies, in order that the judges, the relations, and friends of the dead may be present, and they characterize it by saying, he is going to pass the lake; afterwards the judges, to the number of more than forty arriving, they place themselves in the form of a semi-circle beyond the lake. A batteau approaches the shore, carrying those who have charge of this ceremony, and in which is a sailor, whom the Egyptians name in their language Charon. They say, further, that Orpheus having remarked this custom in his voyage in Egypt, took occasion from it to imagine the fable of hell, imitating a portion of these ceremonies, and adding to them others of his own invention. Before placing in the batteau the coffin containing the body of the deceased, it is lawful for each one present to accuse him. If they prove that he has led a sinful life, the judges condemn him, and he is excluded from the place of his sepulture. If it appear that he has been unjustly accused, they punish the accuser with severity. If no accuser presents himself, or if the one who does so is known as a calumniator, the relatives, putting aside the signs of their grief, deliver an eulogium on the deceased without mentioning his birth, as is practised among the Grecians, because they considered all Egyptians equally noble. They enlarge on the manner in which he has been schooled and instructed from his childhood; upon his piety, justice, temperance, and his other virtues since he attained manhood, and they pray the Gods of hell to admit him into the dwelling of the pious. The people applauded and glorified the dead who were to pass all eternity in the abodes of the happy. If any one has a monument destined for his sepulture, his body is there deposited; if he has none, they construct a room in his house, and place the bier upright against the most solid part of the wall. They place in their houses those to whom sepulture has not been awarded, either on account of crimes, of which they are accused, or on account of the debts which they may have contracted; and it happens sometimes in the end that they obtain honourable sepulture, their children or descendants becoming rich, pay their debts or absolve them.” Orpheus communicated to the Greeks these usages of the Egyptians, applied to hell. Homer, following in his steps, adorned his poetry with them: “Mercury,” says he, “his wand in his hand, convoked the souls of the candidates.” And further on: “They traversed the ocean, passed near Leucadia, entered by the gate of the sun, (Heliopolis,) the country of dreams, and soon attained the fields of Asphodelia, where inhabit the souls who are the images of death.”

      But to return to the recital of Herodotus. “There are in Egypt, certain persons whom the law charges with embalming, and who make a profession of it.

      “When a body is brought to them, they show the bearers models of the dead in wood. The most renowned represents, they say, him whose name I am scrupulous to mention; they show a second, which is inferior to the first, and which is not so costly; they again show a third of a lower price. They afterwards demand after which of the three models they wish the deceased to be embalmed. After agreeing about the price, the relatives retire; the embalmers work alone, and proceed as follows, in the most costly embalming. They first withdraw the brain through the nostrils, in part with a curved iron instrument, and in part by means of drugs, which they introduce into the head; they afterwards make an incision in the flank with a sharp Ethiopian stone.

      “The body being extended upon the earth, the scribe traces on the left flank the portion to be cut out. He who is charged with making the incision, cuts with an Ethiopian stone, as much as the law allows; which having done, he runs off with all his might, the assistants follow, throwing stones after him, loading him with imprecations, as if they wished to put upon him this crime. They regard, indeed, with horror, whoever does violence to a body of the same nature as their own. Whoever wounds it, or in one word, whoever offers it any harm.” (Diodorus, book I, t. i. p. 102.)

      “They withdraw the intestines through this opening, clean them, and pass them through palm wine, place them in a trunk; and among other things they do for the deceased, they take this trunk, and calling the sun to witness, one of the embalmers on the part of the dead, addresses that luminary in the following words, which Euphantus has translated from his vernacular tongue. ‘Sun, and ye too, Gods, who have given life to men, receive me, and grant that I may live with the eternal Gods; I have persisted all my life in the worship of those Gods, whom I hold from my fathers, I have ever honoured the Author of my being, I have killed no one, I have committed no breach of trust, I have done no other evil: if I have been guilty of any other fault during life, it was not on my own account, but for these things.’ The embalmer, in finishing these words, shows the trunk containing the intestines, and afterwards casts it into the river. As to the rest of the body, when it was pure, they embalmed it.” (Porphyr., De abstinentia ab esu animalium, book 17, § 10, p. 329.)

      “Afterwards they fill the body with pure bruised myrrh, with canella and other perfumes, excepting incense; it is then sown up. When that is done they salt the body in covering it with natrum for seventy days.” (Natrum, with the СКАЧАТЬ