Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 25--Liturgy of Funeral Offerings.pdf/42

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LITURGY OF FUNERARY OFFERINGS

about daily in the country. It is known from many texts that souls journeyed from one great sanctuary to another in Egypt, and that they assisted at all the great national festivals, and expected to receive their due share of the offerings which were brought to the altars. From the Papyrus of Nu (XVIIIth Dynasty) we learn that the deceased expected a house to he provided for him on this earth after his death, to which men and women were to bring offerings and oblations daily. And Osiris ordered that beasts for sacrifice were to be brought to him by the south wind (i.e., cattle from Dâr Fûr), and grain by the north wind, and barley from the ends of the earth.[1]

In the papyrus of Takharṭ-p-seru-ȧbṭiu,[2] of the Roman Period, the deceased is addressed in these words: "Thou journeyest upon earth, thou seest those who are therein, thou inspectest all the arrangements in thy house, and thou eatest bread there. . . . Thou journeyest to the city of Nif-urt at the festival of things on the altar, the night of the festival of the Sixth Day, the Festival of Ānep. Thou goest to Nif-urt at the Festival of the Little Heat, thou goest to Ṭaṭṭu during the Festival of Ka-ḥrȧ-ka, on the day of setting up the Ṭeṭ."

The same views are very clearly expressed in the "Book of Traversing Eternity,"[3] and we read there

  1. Book of the Dead, Chapter CLII.
  2. British Museum, No. 10,112.
  3. Ed. Bergmann, Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 86, Heft 2-3, Vienna, 1877