There were numberless small objects, used, no
doubt, by the dead monarch during life, which he would be pleased to see
again in the next world,--carved ivory boxes, little slabs for grinding
eye-paint, golden buttons, model tools, model vases with gold tops,
ivory and pottery figurines, and other _objets d'art_; the golden royal
seal of judgment of King Den in its ivory casket, and so forth. There
were memorials of the royal victories in peace and war, little ivory
plaques with inscriptions commemorating the founding of new buildings,
the institution of new religious festivals in honour of the gods, the
bringing of the captives of the royal bow and spear to the palace, the
discomfiture of the peoples of the North-land.
[Illustration: 067.jpg CONICAL VASE-STOPPERS. From Abydos. 1st Dynasty:
about 4000 B.C.]
All these things, which have done so much to reconstitute for us the
history of the earliest period of the Egyptian monarchy, were placed
under the care of the dead slaves whose bodies were buried round the
empty tomb-chamber of their royal master in Abydos.
The killing and entombment of the royal servants is of the highest
anthropological interest, for it throws a vivid light upon the manners
of the time. It shows the primeval Egyptians as a semi-barbaric people
of childishly simple ways of thought.
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