“In one of these chambers they found, for example, the case and the mummy of a woman, before which was a wooden figure of a young boy on his knees, with one finger on his lips, and in the other hand holding a chaffing dish, resting on his head, and in which there had doubtless been perfume. This young man was marked on the stomach with some hieroglyphic characters; they broke it to pieces to see if it contained gold. They found in the mummy, which they opened for the same reason, a little vase a foot long, containing the same balm which they use for preserving the body from corruption. I took to pieces another female mummy, of which the Sieur Bagarry made me a present. The opening was made in the house of the Capuchin fathers of this city; and they had the imprudence to cut the fillets with scissors; these bands, of considerable length and breadth, were not only charged from one end to the other with hieroglyphic figures, but they also discovered beneath certain unknown characters, traced from right to left and forming a species of verse. Indeed, they remarked the same termination in several little consecutive lines. It consisted most probably, of the eulogium of this person, written in the language which was in use, in his time, in Egypt. However this may be, these bandages taken to pieces, were immediately pillaged by some pedlars, who were present with me at the opening of this mummy; there was only left for me a small portion, which I have since sent to France: none of the Savans have been able to decipher them. This mummy held the right hand applied to his stomach, and under this hand were held instrumental cords perfectly preserved; whence I concluded that it was the body of a person who played upon some instrument, or who, at least, had been addicted to music. I am persuaded that, if each mummy was examined with the same care, some sign of this nature would be occasionally met with.
“I have made another observation, which appears to me neither less curious nor less useful; it is, that in these mummies all the faces differ, some are remarkable for youth, others for beauty. Those who have seen whole mummies know that they have all a gilded mask, composed of several folds of silk cloth, which form a kind of very solid carton. I judged from this diversity, that the masks or cartons, crowded with hieroglyphic characters, which indicate, without doubt, the age, the actions, the manners, and the condition of the person, were also a natural representation of them, either that care had been taken to form this model during life, or that it had only been taken after death by applying these cloths to the face, after the same manner that we take the likeness of a corpse in the present day with plaster or wax. By this means, they not only preserved the bodies of a family entire, but, on entering these subterranean places where they were deposited, they could in an instant see represented all their ancestors for a thousand years, such nearly, as they were when living; nothing was more likely vividly to recall the recollection of their virtues, to perpetuate their memory and love in the hearts of their posterity.