viii. 11); the allusion to the rush-boats which are used on the Nile

(ch. ix. 26), and to the hippopotamus, under the name of Behemoth, the Hebrew translation of the Egyptian _pihémout_, or river-horse, and which is described as “sleeping in the shadow of the lotus, in the covert of the reeds, and in the marshes;... compassed about by the willows of the brook” (Job xl. 16). Again, in ch. xxviii. 1-11, there may be an allusion to the mines worked by the Egyptians on Mt. Sinai, where also are numerous inscriptions left by that people on the rocks.

Footnote 136:

Job iii. 13-15. In the papyri of Neb-Qed in the Louvre, in a gallery parallel to the great hall where the sarcophagus is placed, we see a coffer, a mirror, a collyrium-case, a pair of sandals, a cane, a vase for unguent, another for ablutions, a third for perfumes. The kings and queens took with them into the tomb also their jewels and richest garments, so sure were they of their resurrection. The ordinary dwellings of the Egyptians were small, built of wood or unbaked bricks, but their tombs, the “_Eternal Abodes_,” were of granite. Not a house, not a palace of ancient Egypt is now standing, but their tombs and sepulchral pyramids will probably last as long as our planet. The Hebrews, after the example of the Egyptians, appear to have had treasure buried with them. Josephus relates that Herod, being in want of money, made a nocturnal descent into the tomb of King David. He found there no money, but “_aurea ornamenta multumque supellectilis prætiosæ, quæ omnia abstulit_.”—_Ant. Jud._ lib. xiv. cap. vii. p. 724, Ed. Oxford.

The funereal inscriptions of ancient Egypt are of two kinds: those written on rolls of papyrus or linen bands, enveloping the body of the mummy or enclosed with it inside the sarcophagus; and the incised monuments of stone or granite, erected in the chambers or cut in the walls of the tombs and temples and at the entrance of the pyramids.

Almost all the texts[137] found upon the mummies are extracts from a book which Champollion called the _Ritual_, but which is now styled the _Todtenbuch_, or Book of the Dead; the term “ritual” being confined to the liturgical manuals relating to the ceremonies of inhumation, etc., some curious copies of which may be seen in the Louvre.

Footnote 137:

The faithful in the middle ages were frequently interred with their profession of faith, the _Credo_ and _Confiteor_, or sometimes also the very text from the Book of Job which we are about to consider.

The _Todtenbuch_ is a collection of hymns, prayers, and theological instructions, divided into one hundred and sixty-five chapters, with their titles and rubrics. These rubrics, as in the Catholic missals and breviaries, consist of a few words in red ink to guide the celebrant. The titles of the chapters are also in red. The lines are usually vertical, and, in the richer copies, the upper margin of the roll is adorned, by the side of the title of each chapter, with an illustration or vignette representing the subject there treated. Finally, a whole page is taken up by a picture of the judgment of souls and the ingathering of the harvest in the blessed fields of Ker-Neter.

These texts were to be recited by the soul during its journey, as a safeguard from danger and to purify it at the moment of the solemn judgment which should decide its eternal destiny. The manuscript is intended to assist the memory of the departed. Under the twelfth dynasty these texts were often engraved on the sarcophagus itself.

Thoth, the God of Wisdom, was said to have dictated the _Book of the Dead_, the greater portion of which Bunsen does not hesitate to relegate to prehistoric times.[138]

Footnote 138:

Bunsen, _Egypt’s Place in Universal History_, vol. v. p. 110.

In support of this supposition, M. Deveria notices two very ancient annotations. The first of these, at the sixty-fourth chapter, states that this portion of the _Book of the Dead_ was found at Hermopolis, written in blue, on a cube of _Baakes_, under the feet of the god, where the royal son Hardanouef found it in the time of King Menkera when making the inventory of the temple. The second annotation tells that