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Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy, stories by Frank R Stockton |
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Mummies |
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A mummy is not a very pretty thing to look at; but, considered properly, it is certainly interesting. That stiff form, wrapped up tightly in ever so many dirty cloths, with a black shrivelled face which looks as if it had been cut out of a piece of wood and then smoked, was once, no doubt, a very pleasant person to know. If it was a woman, it played with the children; sewed a little, perhaps; complained of the heat, and went to parties. If it was a man, it probably whistled a little, and sang; settled up its accounts, was fond of horses, and took an interest in the vegetable garden. Most of the mummies that have been brought from Egypt to this country were originally kings, princes, princesses, noblemen, and priests, for few but those high-born folks could afford to be so well preserved as to last all this time; but it is very certain that none of them ever imagined that, thousands of years after their death, they would be carried away to countries never heard of in their day, and be gazed at by people who wore chignons and high-top hats, and who were not born until they had been dead three thousand years. When we consider the care and skill with which the dead Egyptians used to be embalmed and encased in their sarcophagi, it is not surprising that their poor bodies have been so well preserved. At the head of this article you see a mummy as it appears when it has been embalmed and wrapped in its bandages. Here is the stand on which it is then placed. Very often, when the body had been a king or some great personage, its face was covered with a mask of thin gold, and its bandages were ornamented with pictures and inscriptions. When this work of decoration was completed, it was placed in a coffin which was made large enough to hold the stand. This coffin was very handsomely ornamented, and then, in order to make everything very secure indeed, it was enclosed in another or exterior coffin, which was also decorated in the highest style known to Egyptian artists. One would now suppose that this great king or priest was safe enough, looking at the matter in an ordinary light. But the Egyptians did not look at these matters in ordinary lights. Quite otherwise. They intended the useless bodies of their grandees to be packed away so that they should not be disturbed as long as the world lasted, little dreaming of the Americans and Europeans who would come along, in a few thousand years, and buy them for their museums. So they put the mummy, with its stand and its two coffins, into a great stone box called a sarcophagus, and this was fastened and plastered up so as to seem like one solid rock. Then, if the inmate had ever done anything wonderful (or sometimes, no doubt, if he had not been famous for anything in particular), the history of his great achievements, real or fancied, was sculptured on the stone. These hieroglyphics have been deciphered in several instances, and we have learned from them a great deal of Egyptian history. Dead poor people, as well as kings and princes, were made into mummies in Egypt, but they were not preserved by such costly means as those I have mentioned. After they had been embalmed, they were wrapped up as well as the means of their relatives would allow, and were placed in tombs and vaults, sometimes with but one coffin, and sometimes without any. In many cases the mummy was not buried at all, but kept in the house of the family, so that the friends and relatives could always have it with them. This may have been very consoling to the ancient Egyptians, but to us it seems a truly mournful custom. And it is by no means distressing to think, that though the people who may be in this country three thousand years hence may possibly find some of our monuments, they will discover none of our bodies. |
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