To this very day, every visitor to the Islamic world is aware of the innumerable cats in the streets of Cairo-and of Istanbul, Kairouan, Damascus, and may other cities.

The word \'mummy\' is not of Egyptian origin, but is derived from the Arabic \'mumiyah\', which means \'body preserved by wax or bitumen\'. This term is used because of an Arab misconception of the methods used by the Egyptians in preserving their dead.

Also known as the Book of the Dead, was a collection of spells, charms, passwords, numbers and magical formulas for the use of the deceased in the Afterlife.

\"Illumine the Osiris I, whose word is truth. Hail, Shabti. If the Osiris I be decreed to do any of the work which is to be done in the Khert-Neter (i.e. the cemetery), let everything which standeth in the way be removed from him – whether it be to plough the fields, or to fill the channels with water, or to carry sand from (the East to the West). \'Here am I\', you shall say, \'I shall do it.\'\"

The following is an exerpt from Book Two of The Histories by the Greek historian Herodotus.