DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12249#0070
THE LAKE WHICH ETJNERAL PROCESSIONS CROSSED. 39
It lies just at the edge of the desert, is somewhat
depressed with reference to the surrounding level,
and is defined along the greater part of its outline
by high mounds* of sand on the one side and of
the soil of the valley, on which it trenches, on the
other. Besides coming naturally first in order by posi-
tion, it might also not inappropriately be the com-
mencement of a survey of the Necropolis, having
been, as it were, the threshold over which the old
denizens of the tombs themselves passed on to their
sepulchral city. The fresco and relievo mural pictures
of funeral subjects frequently represent ceremonial
processions of boats or barges. Diodorus Siculus,
copying, perhaps, as was his wont, from more ancient
observers than himself, describes a lake as playing
an important part in the rites of Egyptian sepulture,
and tells of forty judges holding solemn court upon
its margin to decide whether any accusation raised
against the moral life of the deceased person brought
so far on the way to burial, was such as to prevent
his being ferried over, the symbol of his having earned
an honourable rest.f It is not improbable that, as
regards the details of this remarkable judicial pro-
cedure, Diodorus, or his authority, may have trans-
* Cutting a section through one of those mounds was one of my
unexecuted designs.
f Diod. Sic. lib. i. c. 7. He is here describing Egyptian burial
without direct reference to locality, but it may be said that the lake
he had particularly in view was at Memphis, as he names it a few
pages further on in the same chapter.
» 4
It lies just at the edge of the desert, is somewhat
depressed with reference to the surrounding level,
and is defined along the greater part of its outline
by high mounds* of sand on the one side and of
the soil of the valley, on which it trenches, on the
other. Besides coming naturally first in order by posi-
tion, it might also not inappropriately be the com-
mencement of a survey of the Necropolis, having
been, as it were, the threshold over which the old
denizens of the tombs themselves passed on to their
sepulchral city. The fresco and relievo mural pictures
of funeral subjects frequently represent ceremonial
processions of boats or barges. Diodorus Siculus,
copying, perhaps, as was his wont, from more ancient
observers than himself, describes a lake as playing
an important part in the rites of Egyptian sepulture,
and tells of forty judges holding solemn court upon
its margin to decide whether any accusation raised
against the moral life of the deceased person brought
so far on the way to burial, was such as to prevent
his being ferried over, the symbol of his having earned
an honourable rest.f It is not improbable that, as
regards the details of this remarkable judicial pro-
cedure, Diodorus, or his authority, may have trans-
* Cutting a section through one of those mounds was one of my
unexecuted designs.
f Diod. Sic. lib. i. c. 7. He is here describing Egyptian burial
without direct reference to locality, but it may be said that the lake
he had particularly in view was at Memphis, as he names it a few
pages further on in the same chapter.
» 4