ard Vyse, are those of the mummy of King Mencheres (which we are free to confess is very doubtful), no human bodies have been found in Egypt, of which we have evidence that they are so old as the times of Joseph. The tomb of Menthotp, the courtier of a Pharaoh of the 11th dynasty, which was opened twenty years ago by Passalaqua at Gournou, is the oldest that ever was discovered intact. There the body, its swathing, and the case had all mouldered to black dust, so that not even the bones were distinguishable. We believe the earliest known mummy to be that of the priest Sa-amun, which was found by the same excavator in the same burial-place. He lived in the reign of Ramses IX., about 1000 B.C. His mummy has been opened, and its accessories minutely and carefully examined. The comparison of the results of this examination, with the accounts of the Greek authors to which we have referred, utterly dispels the assumption of the French savans that nothing changed in Egypt, from the foundation of the monarchy to its extinction. In Egypt, as everywhere else, the art of embalming, like every thing human, was greatly modified by the varying circumstances of the long succession of ages during which it continued to be practised; so that a mummy of the ordinary age of those now existing, that is, of the Greek and Roman periods, or thereabouts, gives no illustration to the embalming of the body

of Jacob, beyond the fact that the practice prevailed in Egypt at both epochs.

:

According to our Greek authorities, the first process in the embalming, after the body had been disembowelled, was to steep it for thirty days in a solution of the salt called natron. This was the practice in the times of both Diodorus and Herodotus, 450 B.C. It had also prevailed at an earlier period for the flesh of the mummy of Sa-amun, 1000 B.C., is saturated with this salt. But to judge by the effects, some change in the mode of application had taken place, even in that interval. The flesh of Sa-amun is entirely adipocire, which suggests the inference, that at the earlier epoch the mummy was not steeped as in the days of Herodotus, but the natronized fluid was incessantly poured over it by attendants. The flesh of the priestess Asrui, "the porteress," at Manchester, is in the same state. She lived in the days of Sesonchis, about a century later than Sa-amun. Here then is a change in a custom of embalming, which prepares us for the inference to which we have been driven by the facts which have been presented to us. So powerful an antiseptic is this solution of natron, so perfectly imperishable does it make the body, that had it been earlier known, the whole of the mummies of all epochs alike would have come down to this time. This conviction first occurred to us as we were stand

ing ankle deep in the black dust, to which all the mummies of the old kingdom have mouldered away, in one of the pits of Ghizeh. Gems, rings, amulets, all of the remotest periods are constantly found among the dust. The articles of wood, the baskets of bread and fruits in these tombs are scarcely altered, but the bodies, their swathings, and their coffins, are all dust. The conclusion seems inevitable. The art of embalming was then in its infancy; so that the bodies have decayed, and communicated their rottenness to the wood and linen that were in contact with them. This process we conceive, would in the climate of Egypt have been impossible, had the practice of applying to the body the natron so universal in the deserts around Egypt then existed.

The next process in the embalmer's art consists, according to our Greek authorities, in anointing the body with palm wine and oil of cedar, and filling up all its cavities with a mixture of fragrant gums, resins and woods. Myrrh, and cassia, or cinnamon, are specified, with other spices not named, as entering into the compound which was used for this purpose.

These practises likewise prevailed in Egypt more that 500 years before the times of Herodotus, the earliest of our written authorities. The linen cloths next to the body of Sa-amun are deeply stained

with some strong astringent like palm wine or oil of cedar. We have already mentioned, that cassia, or cinnamon, and myrrh, were most distinctly perceptible in the spicery that filled the cavities of the body, as well as ladanum, which is mentioned along with them in the Scripture account of the imports of spices from Canaan.

The examination of this mummy also brought to light the circumstance, that the mode of applying the spices underwent considerable modification in the time that thence elapsed before the visit of Herodotus, like the use of the natron. In his days, the spice was only put into the cavities of the body: such is actually the case with mummies cotemporary with Herodotus. But when Sa-amun was embalmed, not only were the cavities filled, but the whole surface of the body was embedded in a mass of spicery. The impossibility of replacing it in its present state when once the linen that bound it to the body had been removed, suggested the conclusion, that some of the ingredients of which it was compounded had been viscid or semi-fluid, and that it had at first been applied to the body in the form of a paste. The average depth of this layer of spicery was at least two inches, so that the quantity must have been enormous. Were we upon the history of Egypt, it would be easy to discover, in the changed political circumstances of Egypt and the

world at the two epochs in question, an abundant reason why the embalmers of the later period used some cheaper expedient, for the preservation of the body, than these costly compounds.

We find therefore that no mummies now existing come within 1000 years of the epoch of Joseph, and also that the embalmer's art in Egypt underwent considerable modifications with the lapse of time. We conclude from hence, that the only certain and tangible illustration which the embalming of Jacob receives from the passages of Herodotus and Diodorus, is the establishment of the fact, that the art of embalming the dead was practised in Egypt in the days of these writers, as well as at the epoch of Joseph.

"And forty days were fulfilled for him [Jacob]; for so are fulfilled the days of those that are embalmed. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days." Gen. 1. 3.

embalming and the underwent, as might change than the art

The time occupied in the attendant funeral ceremonies have been anticipated, far less itself, in the vast interval that separates the epoch of Joseph from that of Herodotus and Diodorus.To the passage before us, therefore, these writers furnish a highly valuable illustration. According to Herodotus, the period assigned by religion, and on no account to be departed from, for the embalm