ices. In two graves
the bodies were covered with a layer of stucco plaster. First the corpse
was covered with a fine linen cloth: then the plaster was put on, and
modelled into the form of the body (p. 252). But in two other cases it
was not the whole body that was covered with this layer of stucco,
but only the head. Professor Junker claims that this was done
"apparently because the head was regarded as the most important part, as
the organs of taste, sight, smell, and hearing were contained in it".
But surely there was the additional and more obtrusive reason that the
face affords the means of identifying the individual! For this modelling
of the features was intended primarily as a restoration of the form of
the body which had been altered, if not actually destroyed. In other
cases, where no attempt was made to restore the features in such durable
materials as resin or stucco, the linen-enveloped head was modelled, and
a representation of the eyes painted upon it so as to enhance the
life-like appearance of the face.

These facts prove quite conclusively that the earliest attempts to
reproduce the features of the deceased and so preserve his likeness,
were made upon the wrapped mummy itself. Thus the mummy was intended to
be the portrait as well as the actual bodily remains of the dead. In
view of certain differences of opinion as to the original significance
of the funerary ritual, which I shall have occasion to discuss later on
(see p. 20), it is important to keep these facts clearly in mind.

A discovery made by Mr. J. E. Quibell in the course of his excavations
at Sakkara[28] suggests that, as an outcome of these practices a new
procedure may have been devised in the Pyramid Age--the making of a
death-mask. For he discovered what may be the mask taken directly from
the face of the Pharaoh Teta (Fig. 3).

[Illustration: Fig. 3.--A mould taken from a life-mask found in the
Pyramid of Teta by Mr. Quibell]

About this time also the practice originated of making a life-size
portrait statue of the dead man's head and placing it along with the
actual body in the burial chamber. These "reserve heads," as they have
been called, were usually made of fine limestone, but Junker found one
made of Nile mud.[29]

Junker believes that there was an intimate relationship between the
plaster-covered heads and the reserve-heads. They were both expressions
of the same idea, to preserve a simulacrum of the deceased when his
actu