- First With
The Crooked Iron Tool They Draw Out The Brain Through The Nostrils,
Extracting It Partly Thus And Partly
By pouring in drugs; and after
this with a sharp stone of Ethiopia they make a cut along the side
And
take out the whole contents of the belly, and when they have cleared
out the cavity and cleansed it with palm-wine they cleanse it again
with spices pounded up: then they fill the belly with pure myrrh
pounded up and with cassia and other spices except frankincense, and
sew it together again. Having so done they keep it for embalming
covered up in natron for seventy days, but for a longer time than this
it is not permitted to embalm it; and when the seventy days are past,
they wash the corpse and roll its whole body up in fine linen cut into
bands, smearing these beneath with gum, which the Egyptians use
generally instead of glue. Then the kinsfolk receive it from them and
have a wooden figure made in the shape of a man, and when they have
had this made they enclose the corpse, and having shut it up within,
they store it then in a sepulchral chamber, setting it to stand
upright against the wall. Thus they deal with the corpses which are
prepared in the most costly way; but for those who desire the middle
way and wish to avoid great cost they prepare the corpse as follows: -
having filled their syringes with the oil which is got from cedar-
wood, with this they forthwith fill the belly of the corpse, and this
they do without having either cut it open or taken out the bowels, but
they inject the oil by the breech, and having stopped the drench from
returning back they keep it then the appointed number of days for
embalming, and on the last of the days they let the cedar oil come out
from the belly, which they before put in; and it has such power that
it brings out with it the bowels and interior organs of the body
dissolved; and the natron dissolves the flesh, so that there is left
of the corpse only the skin and the bones.
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