ough 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 74 cut into bands,
smearing these beneath with gum, 75 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.

87. 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. When they have done this they give back the corpse at
once in that condition without working upon it any more.

88. The third kind of embalming, by which are prepared the bodies of
those who have less means, is as follows:--they cleanse out the belly
with a purge and then keep the body for embalming during the seventy
days, and at once after that they give it back to the bringers to carry
away.

89. The wives of men of rank when they die are not given at once to be
embalmed, nor such women as are very beautiful or of greater regard
th