The numerous Pyramids of Mexico are of vast size and importance, but their purpose is not yet fully ascertained. Completely covered as they are with dense vegetation, filled with venomous reptiles, they are difficult to investigate, but they were evidently much the same in shape and structure as the Egyptian, and their entrances were richly sculptured.
The art of preserving the body after death by embalming was invented by the Egyptians, whose prepared bodies are known by the name of mummies. This art seems to have derived its origin from the idea that the preservation of the body was necessary for the return of the soul to the human form after it had completed its cycle of existence of three or ten thousand years. Physical and sanitary reasons may also have induced the ancient Egyptians; and the legend of Osiris, whose body, destroyed by Typhon, was found by Isis, and embalmed by his son Anubis, gave a religious sanction to the rite, all deceased persons being supposed to be embalmed after the model of Osiris in the _abuton_ of Philæ. One of the earliest embalmments on record is that of the patriarch Jacob; and the body of Joseph was thus prepared, and transported out of Egypt. The following seems to have been the usual rule observed after death. The relations of the deceased went through the city chanting a wail for the dead. The corpse of a male was at once committed into the charge of undertakers; if a female, it was detained at home until decomposition had begun. The _paraschistes_, or flank-inciser of the district, a person of low class, conveyed the corpse home. A scribe marked with a reed-pen a line on the left side beneath the ribs, down which line the paraschistes made a deep incision with a rude knife of stone, or probably flint. He was then pelted by those around with stones, and pursued with curses. Then the _taricheutes_, or preparer, proceeded to arrange the corpse for the reception of the salts and spices necessary for its preservation, and the future operations depended on the sum to be expended upon the task. When Herodotus visited Egypt, three methods prevailed: the first, accessible only to the wealthy, consisted in passing peculiar drugs through the nostrils, into the cavities of the skull, rinsing the body in palm wine, and filling it with resins, cassia, and other substances, and stitching up the incision in the left flank. The mummy was then steeped in natron for 70 days, and wrapped up in linen cemented by gums, and set upright in a wooden coffin against the walls of the house or tomb. This process cost what would now amount in our money to about £725. The second process consisted in injecting into the body cedar oil, soaking it in a solution of natron for 70 days, which eventually destroyed everything but the skin and bones. The expense was a _mina_, relatively, about £243. In the third process, used for the poorer classes, the corpse was simply washed in myrrh, and salted for 70 days. When thus prepared the bodies were ready for sepulture, but they were often kept some time before burial--often at home--and were even produced at festive entertainments, to recall to the guests the transient lot of humanity. All classes were embalmed, even malefactors; and those who were drowned in the Nile or killed by crocodiles received an embalmment from the city nearest to which the accident occurred.