Passing from these interesting relics of ancient manufacturing skill, the visitor will next arrive before two cases (36, 37) of Egyptian fragments of tombs, and weapons of war, illustrating the means of killing and the fashion of burial. In the first division are various goms, or Egyptian sceptres and staffs, some of ebony and some of wood; and the blade of a war-axe, with the name of Thothmes III. inscribed upon it. A variety of offensive weapons are arranged in the second division, including bronze war-axes, one with a hollow silver handle; daggers; bows and arrows, the arrows pointed with triangular bronze heads, and fragments of flint-arrow-heads; fowling-sticks; handsome bronze bladed knives, with agate and other handles, some worked with gold, &c. The fragments in the third division include a knotted rope; a piked club; wooden fan handles; wooden paddles carved with heads of jackals; a mast for the model of a boat; and in the fourth division are a curious cuirass and helmet, from the tombs of Manfaloot, fashioned from a crocodile skin. At this point is another intermediate case containing a mummy, coffin, and boards. The coffin is shaped like a mummy, with a green face, and Netpe, between Isis and Nephthys on the breast, with the deceased being introduced to the deities, among whom he is to be divided by Thoth. This coffin was presented to the Museum by George III.
Having peered into the fragmentary establishments of ancient Egypt, followed the contemporaries of Sesostris into their dining-rooms, even noticed specimens of their dishes, and seen them in their waxen winding-sheets, the visitor may now pass to the next case (39) and notice some of the remains of the materials by the means of which they recorded their actions, and traced their lineaments. Here are displayed the ancient Egyptian pens and pencils, colours and ink, all shrivelled and discoloured with the mould of centuries, but remaining still to bear witness to the early love of knowledge and of art, that urged the Egyptian scribe and the Egyptian artist to fashion them. In the first division are the rectangular pallets, with grooves for the wooden pens or reeds, and hollows for the colour or ink; and here, too, are the kash, or pens used by the ancient scribes. The pallets have