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The Liturgy of Funerary Offerings

By E. A. Wallis Budge

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The Thirty-fifth Ceremony

In this ceremony the materials with which the eyes of the deceased are to be painted are offered. The SEM priest took a bag of Uatch and a bag of Mestemet, and as he offered them the Kher heb said:--

A bag of Uatch and a bag of Mestemet.

"Osiris Unas, I have painted for thee the Eye of Horus with Mestemet so that there may be health to thy face."

The eye-paint called Uatch was first used as a medicine for the eyes, and only later as an ornament; it was a preparation of copper. The eye-lids were first smeared with oil or some unguent, and the powder was applied to them by means of a short, thin stick made of wood, bone, or metal, which among the Arabs is called a "needle." The eye-paint Mestemet, which appears in Coptic under the form  , or , was made from antimony, and its use was general; it was used daily, and was believed to protect the eye against ophthalmia. In modern times preparations of lead, black oxide of manganese, the lamp-black of burnt almonds, &c., are commonly used as "Kohl," or eye-paint.