4. “'Aren't you afraid his family may have taken it out of his mouth before he was buried?'
‘Definitely not. The people of the city are God-fearing. They would never dream of doing such a thing.'
Shaking his head sadly, Zeita said, ‘It's been a long time since people left their dead in the grave with the finery in place.'
‘Those were the days!' sighed Doctor Bushi” (Mahfouz 211).
When Zeita talks about Egyptians leaving their “finery” in place, he refers to the ancient practice of burying the dead along with their possessions. The ancients believed that the dead could use their possessions along the journey to the afterlife. Both men lament at the thought of not robbing as lucrative of graves. This shows Doctor Bushi and Zeita to be both irreverent and out of sync with traditional culture. Mahfouz again uses the two characters to show that many people in the community lack respect for traditions. This too reinforces the theme of pitting the traditional against the modern. The following clip shows typical burials from regions in the Middle East and what items the dead from each region took with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_2dqpF5ky4