Budge, Ernest A. Wallis: Some account of the collection of Egyptian antiquities in the possession of Lady Meux: of Theobalds Park, Waltham Cross (London, 1896)

THE FUNERAL OF AN EGYPTIAN.

portions of the funereal paraphernalia as could be sold
for other burials. In the XXth dynasty the govern-
ment of Egypt was obliged to prosecute a number of
men who devoted their lives to breaking into the
tombs of the kings at Thebes and robbing them, and
there seems little doubt that the removal of the
bodies of kings and members of royal families to
Der el-bahari arose from the existence of an organized
party of malcontents, whose wish was to loot the
splendid tombs where the kings of old slept their
last sleep. Tombs which were found with com-
parative ease were wrecked and robbed by invaders
of Egypt, the Persians and others, but it is probable
that the greatest harm was done to many of them by
the fanatical Egyptian Christian ascetics who took up
their abode in them. In the mythological scenes
and figures of gods which were painted on the walls
they saw heathen abominations and devils; and in
the statues of the dead which loving friends had
placed in the tombs they saw idols which their
zeal prompted them to destroy utterly. Sometimes
these recluses lived in tombs in which hundreds of
mummies were piled up, either with or without
coffins, and there are legends extant from which
we learn that certain very holy men held con-
versations with mummies, and that they promised

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