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Excerpt from Egyptian Literature: Comprising Egyptian Tales, Hymns, Litanies, Invocations, the Book of the Dead and Cuneiform Writings The Egyptians have always been deeply impressed by the fact of human mortality, and much of their religious belief and religious ritual is taken up with the rites of burial, and de tailed doctrines as to the experience of the soul after parting from the body. Their elaborate embalming of the dead springs from the desire to keep the mortal tenement pre pared for the soul's return to it. In their Book of the Dead is a full series of prayers, songs, and incantations to be em ployed at funerals, and by the individual in his journey beyond the tomb. The funeral procession was a very noisy company; lamentations were heard through its whole length, but the burden of the hymns was always, To the West. This was enlarged upon, To the West, the dwelling of Osiris 0 Chief, as thou goest to the West, the Gods themselves lament, as thou goest to the West. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.