The Egyptians were in the habit of eating much bread at table, and fancy rolls or seed-cakes were in abundance at every feast. Those who could afford it ate wheaten bread, the poor alone being content with a coarser kind, made of dura flour or millet. They ate with their fingers, though they occasionalh' used spoons. The table was sometimes covered with a clnth ; and in great entertainments among the rich, each guest was furnished witli a napkin. They sat on a carpet or mat upon the ground, or else on stools or chairs round the table, and did not recline at meat like the Greeks and Romans.' They were particularly fond of music and dancing. The most austere and scrupulous priest could not give a feast without a good band of musicians and dancers, as well as plenty of wine, costly perfumes and ointments, and a profusion of lotus and other flowers. Tumblers, jugglers, and various persons skilled in feats of agility, were hired for the occasion, and the guests played at games of chance, at mora, and the game of latrunculi, resem- bling draughts. The latter was the favorite game of all ranks, and Rameses III is more than once repre- sented playing it in the palace at Thebes. The num- ber of pieces for plaA'ing the game is not exactly known. They were of different colors on the opposite sides of the board, and were not flat as with us, but about an inch and a luilf or two inches high, and were moved like chessmen, with the thumb and finger.
The religious festivals were numerous, and some of them were, in the days of Herodotus, kept with great merry-making and license. His description of that
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«f the goddess Bubastis, kept at the city of Bubastis, in the eastern part of the Delta, would well apply to some of the great Mohammedan festivals now held in the country (ii, 69, Gd). The feast which the Israel- ites celebrated when Aaron had made the golden calf seems to have been veiy much of the same character : first offerings "were presented, and then the people ate, and danced, and sang (Exod. xxxii, 5, 6, 17, 18, IS)), and even, it seems, stripped themselves (ver. 25), as appears to have been not unusual at the popular an- cient Egyptian festivals.
The funeral ceremonies were far more important than any events of the Egyptian life, as the toml) was regarded as the only true home. The body of the de- ceased was embalmed in the form of Osiris, the judge of the dead, and conducted to the burial-]ilace with great pomp and much display of lamentation. The mourning lasted seventy-two days or less. Both Ja- cob and .Joseph were embalmed, and the mourning for the former lasted seventy daj'S.
The Egyptians, for the most part, were accustomed to shave their heads ; indeed, except among the sol- diers, the practice was probably almost universal. They generally wore skull-caps. Otherwise they wore tlieir own hair, or wigs falling to the shoulders in nu- merous curls, or done up in the form of a bag. They also sliaved tlieir faces ; kings, however, and other great personages had beards about three inches long and one inch broad, which were plaited. Tlie crown of Upper Egypt was a sliort cap, with a tall point be- hind, which was worn over the other. The king often had tiie ligure of an asp, the emblem of royalty, tied just above his forehead. The common royal dress was a kilt which reached to the ankles ; over it was worn a shirt, coming down to the knees, with wide sleeves as far as the elbows : lioth these were gener- ally of tine white linen. Sandals were worn on the feet, and on the person, armlets, bracelets, and neck- laces. The upper and middle classes usually went barefoot ; in other respects their dress was much the same as that of the king's, but of course inferior in costliness. The priests sometimes wore a leopard's skin tied over the shoulders, or like a shirt, with the fore legs for the sleeves. The queen had a particular head-dress, which was in the form of a vulture with expanded wings. The beak prelected over the fore- head, the wings fell on either side, and the tail hung down behind. She sometimes wore the urteus or asp. The royal princes were distinguished by a side-lock of hair claliorately plaited. The women wore their hair curled or plaited, reaching about half way from the shoulders to the waist.
The Egyptians were a verj' literary people, and time has preserved to lis, besides the inscriptions on their tombs and temples, man}' papj^ri of a religious or historical character, and one tale. They bear no resemblance to the books of the O. T., except such as arises from their sometimes enforcing moral truths in a manner not wholly different from that of the book of Proverbs. The moral and religious system is, how- ever, essentially different in its principles and their application. Some have imagined a great similarity between the O. T. and Egyptian literature, and have given a show of reason to their idea by dressing up Egyptian documents in a garb of Hebrew phraseology, in which, however, they have gone so awkwardly that no one who had not prejudged the question could for a moment l)e deceived. We find frequent reference in the Bible to the magicians of Egy])t. The Pharaoh of Josepli laid his dream before the mairicians, who could not interpret it (Gen. xli. 8); the Pharaoh of the Exodus used them as opponents of Moses and Aaron, when, after what appears to have been a seeming suc- cess, they ftiiled as before (Exod. vii, 11, 12, 22; viii, 18, 19 ; ix, 11 ; 2 Tim. iii, 8, 9). The monuments do not recognise anj' such art, and we must conclude that magic was secretly practised, not because it was