Identifier: dawnofcivilizati01masp (find matches)
Title: The dawn of civilization: Egypt and Chaldaea
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Maspero, G. (Gaston), 1846-1916
Subjects: Civilization
Publisher: London : S.P.C.K.
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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cted as so many talismans for ensuring the continuous existenceof the ancestor, whose memory they recalled. They compelled the godtherein invoked, whether Osiris or the jackal Anubis, to act as mediatorbetween the living and the departed; they granted to the god the enjoy-ment of sacrifices and those good things abundantly offered to the deities,and by which they live, on condition that a share of them might first be 1 The stele of Shiri, priest of the Pharaohs Sondi and Pirsenû, and one of the most ancientmonuments known, offers a good example of these door-shaped stelae ; cf. p. 237 of this volume, audMaspero, Guide du Visiteur au Musée de Boulaq, pp. 31, 32, where the stele of Khâbiûsokari isreproduced, and where the signification of stelae of this particular type was first pointed out. > TEE STELE AND ITS FUNEREAL SIGNIFICANCE. . 253 set aside for the deceased. By the divine favour, the soul or rather thedoubles of the bread, meat, and beverages passed into the other world,
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STELE IN THE FORM OF A DOOR, AND THE STATUE OF THE TOMB OF MIRRÛKA.1 and there refreshed the human double. It was not, however, necessarythat the offering should have a material existence, in order to be effective ; 1 Drawn by Bouclier, from a photograph of the tomb of Mirrûka, taken by M. de Morgan. 1 254 THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF EGYPT. the first comer who should repeat aloud the name and the formulas inscribedupon the stone, secured for the unknown occupant, by this means alone, theimmediate possession of all the things which he enumerated.1 The stele constitutes the essential part of the chapel and tomb. In manycases it was the only inscribed portion, it alone being necessary to ensurethe identity and continuous existence of the dead man ; often, however, the

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