. A history of art in ancient Egypt . s which hints at the existence of such a custom. Ever since the keyto the hieroglyphics was found, egyptologists have been agreed upon this Egyptian was placed in a sepulchre befitting his station and fortune; his 286 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. There, before the Lords of truth and justice, the soul hadto plead its cause, and there it had to repeat, with an amount ofassurance and success which would depend upon its conduct inthe light, that negative confession which we read in chaptercxxv. of the Book of the Dead, which contains an epito
. A history of art in ancient Egypt . s which hints at the existence of such a custom. Ever since the keyto the hieroglyphics was found, egyptologists have been agreed upon this Egyptian was placed in a sepulchre befitting his station and fortune; his 286 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. There, before the Lords of truth and justice, the soul hadto plead its cause, and there it had to repeat, with an amount ofassurance and success which would depend upon its conduct inthe light, that negative confession which we read in chaptercxxv. of the Book of the Dead, which contains an epitomeof Egyptian ^ But those incorruptible judges were notguided solely by the testimony of the ba in its own weighed its actions in a pair of scales and gave judgmentaccording to their weight.^ The impious soul was flogged, wasdelivered to storm and tempest, and, after centuries of suffering,underwent a second death, the death of annihilation. The justsoul, on the other hand, had to conquer in many a combat before. Fig. 183.—Hunting scene upon a tomb at Gournah. (ChampoUion, pi. 171.) it was admitted to contemplate the supreme verities. Duringits transit across the infernal regions, hideous forms of evil sprangup before it and did their best to arrest its progress by terrifying relations and friends had to ask no permission before they placed him in it; it wasin the other world that he was brought up for judgment, and had to fear the sentenceof an august tribunal. 1 Maspero gives a translation of it into French in his Histoire A?idenne,pp. 44 and 45. 2 This weighing of the actions of the deceased was represented in the illustratedspecimens of the Ritual of the Dead and upon the walls of the tombs, andperhaps upon those monuments decorated with Egyptian motives which weresprinkled by the Phoenicians over the whole basin of the jMediterranean. Comingunder the eyes of the Greeks, it was modified by their lively imaginations into tliatij/vxoa-Taa-La, or zieig/
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