upon the mummy of Queen Aahhotep, a number of arms and amulets were heaped inside her coffin; namely, three massive gold flies hanging from a slender chain; nine small hatchets, three of gold and six of silver; a golden lion’s head of very minute workmanship; a wooden sceptre set in gold spirals; two anklets; and two poignards.  One of these poignards (fig. 304) has a golden sheath and a wooden hilt inlaid with triangular mosaics of carnelian, lapis lazuli, felspar, and gold.  Four female heads in gold repousse form the pommel; and a bull’s head reversed covers the junction of blade and hilt.  The edges of the blade are of massive gold; the centre of black bronze damascened with gold.  On one side is the solar cartouche of Ahmes, below which a lion pursues a bull, the remaining space being filled in with four grasshoppers in a row.  On the other side we have the family name of Ahmes and a series of full-blown flowers issuing one from another and diminishing towards the point.  A poignard found at Mycenae by Dr. Schliemann is similarly decorated; the Phoenicians, who were industrious copyists of Egyptian models, probably introduced this pattern into Greece.  The second poignard is of a make not uncommon to this day in Persia and India (fig. 305).  The blade is of yellowish bronze fixed into a disk-shaped hilt of silver.  When wielded, this lenticular[79] disk fits to the hollow of the hand, the blade coming between the first and second fingers.  Of what use, it may be asked, were all these weapons to a woman—­ and a dead woman?  To this we may reply that the other world was peopled with foes—­Typhonian genii, serpents, gigantic scorpions, tortoises, monsters of every description—­against which it was incessantly needful to do battle.  The poignards placed inside the coffin for the self-defence of the soul were useful only for fighting at close quarters; certain weapons of a projectile kind were therefore added, such as bows and arrows, boomerangs made in hard wood, and a battle-axe.  The handle of this axe is fashioned of cedar-wood covered with sheet gold (fig. 306).  The legend of Ahmes is inlaid thereon in characters of lapis lazuli, carnelian, turquoise, and green felspar.  The blade is fixed in a cleft of the wood, and held in place by a plait-work of gold wire.  It is of black bronze, formerly gilt.  On one side, it is ornamented with lotus flowers upon a gold ground; on the other, Ahmes is represented in the act of slaying a barbarian, whom he grasps by the hair of the head.  Beneath this group, Mentu, the Egyptian war-god, is symbolised by a griffin with the head of an eagle.  In addition to all these objects, there were two small boats, one in gold and one in silver, emblematic of the bark in which the mummy must cross the river to her last home, and of that other bark in which she would ultimately navigate the waters of the West, in company with the immortal gods.  When found, the silver boat rested upon a wooden truck with four bronze wheels; but as