" The soul found on
examination to be bad is tormented for centuries and at last
annihilated. The good soul springs up across the firmament; after many
tests it rejoins the company of the gods and is absorbed into them.
=Mummies.=--During this pilgrimage the soul may wish to re-enter the
body to rest there. The body must therefore be kept intact, and so the
Egyptians learned to embalm it. The corpse was filled with spices,
drenched in a bath of natron, wound with bandages and thus transformed
into a mummy. The mummy encased in a coffin of wood or plaster was
laid in the tomb with every provision necessary to its life.
=Book of the Dead.=--A book was deposited with the mummy, the Book of
the Dead, which explains what the soul ought to say in the other world
when it makes its defence before the tribunal of Osiris: "I have never
committed fraud; ... I have never vexed the widow; ... I have never
committed any forbidden act; ... I have never been an idler; ... I
have never taken the slave from his master; ... I never stole the
bread from the temples; ... I never removed the provisions or the
bandages of the dead; I never altered the grain measure; .
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