buildings of unburned bricks; but the Greeks insisted on some
ornamentation of the simplest structure, if it served a public purpose,
and the embalming-houses had a colonnade along their front, and their
walls were covered with stucco, painted in gaudy colors, here in the
Egyptian and there in the Greek taste. There were scenes from the
Egyptian realm of the dead, and others from the Hellenic myths; for the
painters had been enjoined to satisfy the requirements and views of
visitors of every race. The chief attraction, however, this night was
within; for the men whose duties were exercised on the dead had displayed
the finest and best of what they had to offer to their customers.

The ancient Greek practice of burning the dead had died out under the
Antonines. Of old, the objects used to deck the pyre had also been on
show here; now there was nothing to be seen but what related to interment
or entombment.

Side by side with the marble sarcophagus, or those of coarser stone, were
wooden coffins and mummy-cases, with a place at the head for the portrait
of the deceased. Vases and jars of every kind, amulets of various forms,
spices and balsams in vials and boxes, little images in burned clay of
the gods and of men, of which none but the Egyptians knew the allegorical
meaning, stood in long rows on low wooden shelves. On the higher shelves
were mummy bands and shrouds, some coarse, others of the very finest
texture, wigs for the bald heads of shaven corpses, or woolen fillets,
and simply or elaborately embroidered ribbons for the Greek dead.

Nothing was lacking of the various things in use for decking the corpse
of an Alexandrian, whatever his race or faith.

Some mummy-cases, too, were there, ready to be packed off to other towns.