Chapter 121

, with the following rubric:—

“Said over an ear-ring of the flower Ânch-amu, put upon the right ear of the deceased person, with another ear-ring, put in fine linen, upon which is written the name of _N_, on the day of burial.”

1. The Bennu is a bird of the Heron kind. He is very commonly but, I think, erroneously identified with the Phoenix. The bird described by Herodotus, II, 73, was in outline and size “very like an eagle,” which no one could say of the Bennu. He appeared only once in five hundred years, whereas the Bennu appeared every day. The fable as told by the Greeks is utterly unsupported by any Egyptian authority known to us.

2. This passage is, unfortunately, both in the ancient and the recent forms, corrupt.

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