nity were too high for
the educated scribe. Thoth appears in the papyri and on the monuments as
an ibis-headed man, and his companion is usually a dog-headed ape called
"Asten." In the Hall of the Great Judgment he is seen holding in one
hand a reed with which he is writing on a palette the result of the
weighing of the heart of the dead man in the Balance. The gods accepted
the report of Thoth without question, and rewarded the good soul and
punished the bad according to his statement. From the beginning to the
end of the history of Egypt the position of Thoth as the "righteous
judge," and framer of the laws by which heaven and earth, and men and
gods were governed, remained unchanged.

[Illustration: Thoth, the Scribe of the Gods.]

The substances used by the Egyptians for writing upon were very
numerous, but the commonest were stone of various kinds, wood, skin, and
papyrus. The earliest writings were probably traced upon these
substances with some fluid, coloured black or red, which served as ink.
When the Egyptians became acquainted with the use of the metals they
began to cut their writings in stone. The text of one of the oldest
chapters of the Book of the Dead (LXIV) is said in the Rubric to the
chapter to have been "found" cut upon a block of "alabaster of the
south" during the reign of Menkaura, a king of the fourth dynasty, about
3700 B.C. As time went on and men wanted to write long texts or
inscriptions, they made great use of wood as a writing material, partly
on account of the labour and expense of cutting in stone. In the British
Museum many wooden coffins may be seen with their insides covered with
religious texts, which were written with ink as on paper. Sheepskin, or
goatskin, was used as a writing material, but its use was never general;
ancient Egyptian documents written on skin or, as we should say, on
parchment, are very few. At a very early period the Egyptians learned
how to make a sort of paper, which is now universally known by the name
of "papyrus." When they made this discovery cannot be said, but the
hieroglyphic inscriptions of the early dynasties contain the picture of
a roll of papyrus, and the antiquity of the use of papyrus must
therefore be very great. Among the oldest dated examples of inscribed
papyrus may be noted some accounts which were written in the reign of
King Assa (fourth dynasty, 3400 B.C.), and which were found at Sakkarah,
about 20 miles to the south of Cairo.

Papyru