Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/30

20 M U L M U M district during the latter half of the 18th century is a story of alternate invasion by Marhattas, Afghans, and Sikhs. At length, in 1779, Muzaffar Khan, of the Sadozai family, succeeded in obtain ing the governorship of Multan. Ranjit Sinh after a long siege carried the capital by storm in 1818, and put Muzaffar Khan and live of his sons to death. In 1829 he made over the administration of Multan with five neighbouring districts to the famous Sawan Mall, who raised the province to a state of prosperity by excavating canals and inducing new inhabitants to settle. After the establish ment of the council of regency at Lahore, difficulties arose between Miilrtij, son and successor of Sawan Mall, and the British officials, which led to his rebellion, and culminated in the second war and the annexation of the whole of the Punjab. The city of Multan, after a stubborn defence, was carried by storm in January 1849. The district at once passed under direct British rule, and order has not been disturbed since. MULTAN, or MOOLTAN, city and headquarters of the above district, is situated 4 miles from the present left bank of the Chenab (30 12 N. lat., 71 30 E. long.). The total population in 1881 was 68,674. The town is enclosed on three sides by a wall, but open towards the south, where the dry bed of the old Ravi intervenes between the town and citadel. Large and irregular suburbs have grown up out side the wall since the annexation in 1849. Within the city proper, narrow and tortuous streets, often ending in culs- de-sac, fill almost the whole space ; but one broad bazaar runs from end to end. The principal buildings include the shrines of two Mohammedan saints and the remains of an ancient Hindu temple. The civil station contains a court house and treasury, commissioner s offices, jail, post-office, telegraph-office, dispensary, and staging bungalow The Church Missionary Society maintains a station here. As a trade centre Multan possesses great importance, its chief imports being cotton and other piece-goods, while the main staples of export are sugar, cotton, indigo, and wool. Trade continues to develop slowly but steadily. The value of the imports for 1879, 1880, 1881 was 75, 84, and 87 lakhs of rupees, and of the exports 36, 37, and 40 lakhs respectively. Lately there has been a great revival of the indigo trade. MULTIPLEPOINDING is the technical term for a form of action in Scotch law by which conflicting claims to the same fund or property are determined. The action is brought either by the holder or by a claimant in his name. All who have any claims in the fund or property in question are ordered to appear and give in their claims ; the court then prefers them according to their respective rights, and the holder of the fund or property in dispute on payment or delivery is absolved from any further claim in regard to it. MUMMY. The origin of mummification in Egypt has given rise to much learned conjecture (see EMBALMING), now, however, superseded by positive knowledge, a com parative study of sepulchral texts having furnished Egypto logists with convincing proof that the inviolate preservation of the body was deemed essential to the corporeal resurrec tion of the "justified " dead. The living man consisted of a body, a soul, an intelligence, and an appearance or eidolon, in Egyptian, a ka. Death dissociated these four parts, which must ultimately be reunited for all eternity. Between death on earth and life everlasting there inter vened, however, a period varying from 3000 to 10,000 years, during which the intelligence wandered, luminous, through space, while the soul performed a painful pro bationary pilgrimage through the mysterious under- world. The body, in order that it should await, intact, the return of the soul whose habitation it was, must meanwhile be guarded from corruption and every danger. Hence, and hence only, the extraordinary measures taken to ensure the preservation of the corpse and the inviolability of the sepulchre ; hence the huge pyramid, the secret pit, and the subterraneous labyrinth. The shadowy and impalpable ka the mere aspect, be it remembered, of the man was supposed to dwell in the tomb with the mummied body. This fragile conception was not, however, indestructible, like the soul and the intelligence. Being an aspect, it must perforce be the aspect of something material ; and, if the body which it represented were destroyed or damaged, the ka was liable to the like mischance. In view of this danger, the Egyptian, by stocking his sepulchre with portrait statues, sought to provide the Ten with othor Mummies. chances of continuance, these statues being designed, in a strictly literal sense, to serve as supports or dummies for the ka. The funereal portrait statues of the ancient empire (Dynasties I. to VI.) are marvels of realistic art in basalt, diorite, limestone, and wood. As many as twenty duplicates have been found in a single tomb, and always secreted in hidden chambers constructed in the thickness of the walls of the sepulchre. The Bulak Museum is very rich in ka statues of the ancient empire ; and the British Museum contains two in wood from the tomb of Seti I., of the period of Dynasty XIX. For the processes of mummification, as narrated by Greek and Latin authors, see EMBALMING. The details which follow are taken from original Egyptian sources. The embalmment of a man of wealth, done in the costliest manner, consisted of (1) the "going into the good abode," (2) the Teb, (3) the Kesau. The first of these was the process of evisceration, cleansing, tc., which occupied 15 or 1 6 days ; the second was the salting or bituminizing, and took 19 or 20 days; the third was the spicing and bandaging, and took 34 or 35 days, making 70 or 72 days in all. There were four special " rituals " for the guidance of the priestly operators and assistants (1) that of " going into the good abode," which was a kind of surgical manual for the use of the paraschists, enu merating the incisions to be made in the body ; (2) that of "the Kesau" a corresponding manual for the use of the taricheutes, containing lists of the necessary gums, resins, spices, &c., directions as to the number and nature of the bandages, and prayers to be repeated while adjusting them; (3) the "water ritual" or service-book of litanies, to be recited during the transport of the mummy to the cemetery, which was almost always done by boat ; (4) the funereal ritual, performed on consigning the mummy to the tomb. No copy of the first of these documents is known, but its substance is summarized in the Rhind papyrus. Of the other three, contemporary copies written on papyrus exist in various museums. Establishments for the reception and mummification of the dead were attached to all the great cemeteries. These mortuary suburbs, by the Greeks called "memnonia" (/ie/ivoveia), were inha bited by a large population of embalmers, mummy -case makers, gilders, painters, scribes, priests, and the like ;