Research Items

Abstract

Ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe.—Interesting parallels are drawn between certain customs of ancient Egypt and those of medieval and even modern Europe by Mr. L. B. Ellis in Ancient Egypt, 1931, pt. 4. The ‘rearing feast’ given to workmen in Westphalia by the owner of a newly erected house, finds its counterpart in the sacrifice offered in ancient Egypt for the workmen who had built a tomb. The splendour of the burial equipment of Tut-Ankh Amen is not far removed in spirit from that which was responsible for the burial of Henry II. of England, according to Matthew Paris, in royal robes, crown, ring, gloves, boots of gold-work, gilt spurs, and sceptre and sword; while a bishop or abbot was buried in full vestments, and a bishop of the eleventh century had with him his liturgical comb, with which he had smoothed his beard as he approached the altar. The use of the canopic jars for the storing of the viscera is paralleled by the separate burial of the heart and of the viscera of Eleanor of Castile, and of the heart of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII. The desire of the medieval devout to be buried, or to have a tomb, in Palestine, takes the form in Egypt of burial at Abydos, or failing that, the erection of a tomb or stele. The concern for burial in both instances is shown in the arrangement for the tomb during lifetime as Henry VIII. contracted with Torrigiano for his tomb in Westminster Abbey. The effigies on Egyptian tombs show grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, friends, and even a favourite dog. On Elizabethan and Jacobean tombs, married couples appear with their progeny, even those who have died in infancy. Similarities in funerary inscriptions are very close, even when the Egyptians compare themselves with their gods. Rekhmara was “Thoth in judgment, the image of Ptah, the equal of Khnum”; while Lady Cope D'Oyley, ob. 1633, was “Rebecca in grace, in heart an Abigail, in works a Dorcas, for the church a Hanna, and to her spouse Susanna; prudently simple, providently wary, to the world a Martha and to Heaven a Mary”.