opia 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
cut into bands, smearing these beneath with gum, 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. 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. 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. 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 than others, but on
the third or fourth day after their death (and not before) they are
delivered to the embalmers. They do so about this matter in