he soul, and the other, Osiris, of the body, perforce met
officially, though usually holding little communication with each other.

As I stood at the portal two processions of priests drew near, the one
led by Rahotep, the other by Nefermat. These two, leaving their
attendants, entered the temple.

As they passed I bowed low to earth and followed into the corridor,
there they found seats, and I stood before them awaiting their commands.

Rahotep said, "Our mother, the queen, has just died; after her body is
partly embalmed they will bring it here from Men-nefer, when you,
because of your skill, are to prepare it to rest in the vault of the
great pyramid beside our father Sneferru, in care of Osiris, until Amun
shall see fit to surrender her soul again to her body."

(Nefermat) "You mean, until Osiris shall deem her soul sufficiently
purified to re-enter her body."

"No, as Amun is the superior of Osiris, so is the soul master of its
tenement, the body, though it is by the grace of Osiris that the body is
preserved until Amun has purified the soul for another human existence."

"You are wrong; in all sacred animals human souls dwell; it is only when
those souls are made pure that Osiris permits them to occupy a human
form. * * * Tepti, priest of Osiris, embalmer of and dweller with the
dead and custodian of the temple of the Dead, what say you as to the
body and the soul?"

"Pardon, Most Exalted of Osiris, am I to look upon your question as a
command?"

"Yes."

"My belief, of which I am not master, I have kept unto myself and if put
into words is but spoken ignorance. To become an expert embalmer I
experimented on the bodies of many animals not sacred to our gods and
discovered that they were as easily preserved as the bodies of men. This
forced the conclusion that if man was specially favored of the gods, it
was not in bodily composition; therefore, it would seem, the body is not
sacred and is unworthy of the great expenditure of time and wealth which
we give it as priests of Osiris. The body after death is as the husk of
a nut from which the kernel has been extracted and our people would be
better off were it burned as the refuse of earth. We of Osiris, who say
the body must not perish, know better than anyone else that it does
perish. If there is a difference between the body of a man and an
animal's, that distinction departs at death; therefore, the distinction
is life or a part of life and the questions pr