of the texts the geography of the
underworld, in which Osiris is king, is worked out in great
detail. When the sun sets in the west, Ra in his boat enters the
underworld and passes through it during the twelve hours of the
night, bringing light and happiness to those who are in the
underworld. In the effort to secure the tomb against plundering,
the royal graves had been cut in the solid rock,--long and
complicated passages with false leads and deceptive turns and the
burial chamber in an unexpected place. The long walls of these
rooms presented a great surface suitable to decoration, and they
were utilized to depict scenes from the underworld and the
passage of Ra through it, so that the tombs became in fact
representations of the land of the dead, and were so considered.
These royal tombs were at a distance from the cultivated land,
hidden in valleys in the desert. Their funerary temples were
built on the edge of the desert beside the temples of the gods of
the place.

Such fantastical reconstructions of the other world, however,
never found general favor and are confined to a few royal tombs.
The priests and other prominent people have rolls of papyrus
buried with them, bearing copies of books of the dead. These
books of the dead are made up of a series of chapters, each
complete in itself and each dealing with some phase of the future
life. There is no set order of chapters. There is no fixed number
of chapters. Each scribe seems to have selected the chapters
which he considered useful. The general title is: Chapters of the
going forth by day. The general character may be given by a
paragraph attached to one of the chapters in the Book of Ani the
Scribe [Edited by E. A. W. Budge, p. 26]: "If this book be known
on earth and written on the coffin, it is my mouth. He shall come
forth by day in any form he desires and he shall go into his
place without being prevented. There shall be given to him bread
and beer and meat upon the altar of Osiris. He shall enter in, in
peace, to the field of Earu according to this decree of the one
who is in the City of Dedu. There shall be given to him wheat and
barley there. He shall flourish as he did upon earth. He shall do
his desires like these nine Gods who are in the underworld, as
found true millions of times. He is the Osiris: the Scribe Ani."

There are chapters to overcome all the evil which a soul may
encounter; there are words to greet all the gods whom