Egyptian outer coffins.

The visitor, having reached the northern end of the Egyptian Saloon, should turn to the south, and begin a minute examination of its contents.  The sarcophagi, or outer coffins of stone, in which the rich ancient Egyptians deposited the embalmed bodies of their relations, occupy the greater part of the ground space of the saloon.  They are massive shells, hewn from the solid rock, polished and engraved skilfully with hieroglyphics, which, so far as the learned have been able to decipher, record the exploits of the great men they contained.  Some of them are in the shape of common boxes with raised lids; while in others, attempts to represent the features of the deceased, and a rough outline of a mummy are apparent.  These massive coffins, which are upwards of three thousand years old, and are eloquent with the mystic written language of that remote antiquity, deserve more than a transient notice even from the unscientific visitor.  Mummies were found in most of these, proving their use.  Some were discovered placed in an erect, and others in a recumbent posture, in the tombs of Thebes, or on the sites of ancient cities.

Of the sarcophagi or coffins, fashioned in the shape of a mummy, the visitor should notice that in calcareous stone, numbered 47, which was discovered at Tana; another, with the paintings restored, marked 39; another in green basalt, marked 33, known to be that of a female called Auch, decorated with the embalming deities, and inscribed with a prayer on behalf of the deceased woman; and one of later date which has held the remains of a member of the priestly class, numbered 17.  To arrive at a fair estimate of the average art displayed in these ancient sepulchral remains, it is worth the trouble of the visitor to wander a little about the saloon from one specimen to the next immediately connected with, or proximately resembling it.  Having examined the coffins shaped like mummies, the visitor should next direct his attention to the massive oblong cases which lie upon the ground on either side of him.

The first of these which he may examine is that marked 32.  This sarcophagus was excavated from the back of the palace of Sesostris, near Thebes.  Athor appears in bas-relief upon the lid; the sun is represented in the interior, together with Heaven represented as a female, and a repetition of the goddess Athor.

The names of several royal ladies have been deciphered from the inscriptions, which are the addresses of deities.  The black granite chest of a sarcophagus, numbered 23, is that of a royal scribe named Hapimen.  Here the well-known figures of the Amenti, the embalmer Anubis, and other deities and symbols, will remind the visitor of the Egyptian room up stairs, with its strange green little images of figures half human and half bestial.  Round the interior are the deities to whom the various parts of the human body were severally dedicated.  Since this massive