ons,
occupy the greater part of the ground space of the saloon. They are
massive shells, hewn from the solid rock, polished and engraved
skilfully with hieroglyphics, which, so far as the learned have been
able to decipher, record the exploits of the great men they contained.
Some of them are in the shape of common boxes with raised lids; while
in others, attempts to represent the features of the deceased, and a
rough outline of a mummy are apparent. These massive coffins, which
are upwards of three thousand years old, and are eloquent with the
mystic written language of that remote antiquity, deserve more than a
transient notice even from the unscientific visitor. Mummies were
found in most of these, proving their use. Some were discovered placed
in an erect, and others in a recumbent posture, in the tombs of
Thebes, or on the sites of ancient cities.

Of the sarcophagi or coffins, fashioned in the shape of a mummy, the
visitor should notice that in calcareous stone, numbered 47, which was
discovered at Tana; another, with the paintings restored, marked 39;
another in green basalt, marked 33, known to be that of a female
called Auch, decorated with the embalming deities, and inscribed with
a prayer on behalf of the deceased woman; and one of later date which
has held the remains of a member of the priestly class, numbered 17.
To arrive at a fair estimate of the average art displayed in these
ancient sepulchral remains, it is worth the trouble of the visitor to
wander a little about the saloon from one specimen to the next
immediately connected with, or proximately resembling it. Having
examined the coffins shaped like mummies, the visitor should next
direct his attention to the massive oblong cases which lie upon the
ground on either side of him.

The first of these which he may examine is that marked 32. This
sarcophagus was excavated from the back of the palace of Sesostris,
near Thebes. Athor appears in bas-relief upon the lid; the sun is
represented in the interior, together with Heaven represented as a
female, and a repetition of the goddess Athor.

The names of several royal ladies have been deciphered from the
inscriptions, which are the addresses of deities. The black granite
chest of a sarcophagus, numbered 23, is that of a royal scribe named
Hapimen. Here the well-known figures of the Amenti, the embalmer
Anubis, and other deities and symbols, will remind the visitor of the
Egyptian room up stairs, with i