Khert,” or the Other World, and in the Vignette the priest is seen standing and holding the Ur-ḥekau instrument in his right hand, and a vase in his left. He holds out the instrument towards the face of the deceased, and is, as we know from other sources, about to touch his mouth. In the text of the XXIIIrd Chapter the deceased says, “Ptah hath opened for me my mouth with his instrument of iron wherewith he opened the mouth of the gods.” This is an mportant statement, for it shows that in the Ptolemaïc Period a legend was extant that at some time during their existence the mouths of the gods needed opening, that the origin of the ceremony of “Opening the Mouth” was divine, and that it was performed in the mythological period.
The illustrated papyri which contain the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead supply further details
of the ceremony, and in the papyrus of Ani, in the Vignette of Chapter XXIII., we see a Sem priest, clad in a panther’s or leopard’s skin, performing one portion of it on a figure of the scribe Ani. In front of him are unguents, three
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instruments, and the instrument
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. In another Vignette in the same papyrus is a representation of the performance of the ceremony at the door of the tomb. The mummy of Ani is held upright by Anubis, and three priests are officiating; two hold the instruments to the face of the mummy, and the third reads the
