These gods represented the south, north, east, and west respectively, and the goddesses with whom they were associated were Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Serqet. Mesthȧ protected the stomach and large intestines; Ḥāpi, the small intestines; Ṭuamutef the lungs and heart; and Qebḥsennuf the liver and gall bladder. The custom of mummifying the intestines separately is as old as the VIth dynasty at least, and the gods of the cardinal points who presided over them are mentioned several times in the texts of Unȧs, Pepi, and other kings of the Vth and VIth dynasties. The four jars were usually placed in a coffer, or chest, specially prepared for the purpose; and this is frequently depicted in representations of funeral processions. The Ani Papyrus shows the four sons of Horus standing by the coffer containing the mummified intestines of the deceased, and his renewed body rising through the cover of it, holding “life” 𓋹 in each hand (see page 138). Among the fine collection of “Canopic” jars in the British Museum may be specially mentioned the set made for Ḳua-ṭep, XIth dynasty, No. 30,838 (Third Egyptian Room, Wall-case No. 112), and the sets Nos. 22,374-7, and 9562-5, of the later period, in Wall-cases Nos. 74 and 75 (Second Egyptian Room). The custom of mummifying the dead appears to have been unknown in the Predynastic Period. In the earliest attempts made to preserve the body, the plan followed was to remove the intestines, and then to dry it in the sun, or to rub it with salt. The skulls found in the tombs are usually empty, a fact which proves that the embalmers were able to remove the brain and membranes without injury to the bridge of the nose; sometimes they contain bitumen, or some kind of resin, which must have been introduced into them by the way through which the brains were extracted, _i.e._, through the nostrils. Mummies cured with unguents and spices do not last long when unrolled; the skin of those cured with natron, _i.e._, a mixture of carbonate, sulphate, and muriate of soda, is hard, and comparatively durable, but it hangs loosely from the bones, which are white and somewhat friable; bodies from which the intestines have been removed, and which have been preserved by being filled with bitumen, are quite black and hard, and practically speaking, last for ever. The dead poor were sometimes merely salted and laid in a common pit or cave. At one period the dead were embalmed in honey: the treatment of the child who was found in a sealed jar of honey, mentioned by the Muḥammadan writer ʿAbd al-Laṭîf, and the body of Alexander the Great being well-known instances of the custom.