=8.= In all periods the burial of the dead was accompanied by the presentation of series of offerings. Up to the end of the Vth dynasty a comparatively small number of names of offerings was inscribed on the walls of the tombs, and in the presentation of such offerings consisted the ceremony of =Opening the Mouth= of the dead. Under the VIth dynasty a new and enlarged list of offerings was drawn up, and a series of formulas was added to it for recital by the priest as object after object was presented to the mummy. In many of these formulas there were plays of words upon the names of the offerings, each of which was symbolical of some divine being, or object, or act. Several new ceremonies connected with the purification and censing of the mummy, and the use of instruments in “opening the mouth and eyes” of the mummy were introduced at this time. To this List of Offerings, with its rubrics, the name of =Liturgy of Funerary Offerings= may be given. Under the XVIIIth dynasty a further development of the List of Offerings took place, and new ceremonies were added, and the work was henceforth known as the =Book of Opening the Mouth=. The visitor will see on the west wall of the Second Egyptian Room a large coloured drawing in which the performance of ceremonies connected with the opening of the mouth is represented. One priest is supposed to be touching the mouth of the mummy with the =Ur-ḥeka= instrument, and is holding other instruments; the other priest is presenting vases of water. Behind them is the KHER ḤEB, or Lector, who is pouring out water from a libation vase and burning incense. The object of the Book of Opening the Mouth was: 1. To give the deceased a new body in the Other World, and to make him to be divine. 2. To establish communion between the living and the dead. In later days a statue of the deceased took the place of his mummy in the ceremonies, and then the chief object of the ceremonies, formulas, and offerings, was to provide a dwelling place for the _Ka_ or “double” of the deceased, and to make his soul to take up its abode in the statue. The Book of Opening the Mouth was in general use from the Vth dynasty to the first or second century of our era, that is, for a period of 4,000 years, and copies of it made in the Roman Period are almost identical with those found in the Pyramids of Ṣaḳḳârah of the VIth dynasty.