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usually inscribed. At the foot of the false door, on the bare ground, is often seen a tablet for offerings, made of granite, alabaster, limestone, etc., on which are sculptured figures of meat and drink offerings-cakes, loaves of bread, geese, a haunch of beef, vases of unguents, fruit, vegetables, flowers, etc. many tablets for offerings small tanks, or hollows, with channels, are cut, and in these libations of wine were supposed to be poured. A large collection of such tablets for offerings of all periods, from the IVth dynasty to the Roman Period, is exhibited in the Egyptian Gallery, Bays 14 and 16. Sometimes a pair of stands for offerings, made of stone, is found by the stele; examples of these are exhibited in Wall-case No. 200, in the Fourth Egyptian Room. In the south or north wall of the mastaba chamber is usually a narrow chamber built of large stones, partly hidden in the masonry, to which the name of Serdab1 has been given. Sometimes the serdâb is isolated from the chamber, but usually it is connected with it by means of a rectangular passage, or slit, so narrow that the hand can be inserted in it with difficulty. Inside the serdâb the statue of the deceased, which was intended to serve as a dwelling-place for the Ka, or double, was placed, and the passage was made in order to conduct to it the smoke and smell of the burning incense and offerings. The serdâb is sometimes called the "Ka-chapel," and persons of means and position generally appointed a "priest of the Ka" to offer up offerings morning and evening. The pit, or shaft, of the mastaba was rectangular, square, or oblong, but never round, and it varied in depth from 40 to 80 feet. It led to the chamber below the ground where the mummy was laid. At the bottom of the pit, on the south side, was an opening into a passage from 4 to 5 feet high; this passage led obliquely to the south-east, in the same direction as the upper chamber, and then expanded on all sides and became the sarcophagus chamber, or mummy chamber. When the dried or mummified body had been placed in the sarcophagus, and the cover of the sarcophagus had been sealed, the pit was filled with stones, mud, and sand, and the deceased was thus preserved from all ordinary chances of disturbance.

The ornamentation of the mastaba consisted of sculptured scenes of three classes: 1. Biographical. 2. Sepulchral. 3. Those referring to the cult of the dead and funerary gifts. In them we see the deceased hunting, fishing, making pleasure

1 Strictly speaking the serdab is a lofty, vaulted, subterranean chamber, with a large opening in the north side to admit air in the hot weather.

excursions by water, listening to music and watching women dance, overseeing building operations, or the work of ploughing, sowing and reaping on his estate, the management of cattle, the bringing of offerings to his tomb, etc. The reader will gain a good idea of the general arrangement of the false doors inside the mastaba chamber, and the painted decorations and sculptures of an ordinary mastaba, by examining the complete monument exhibited in the Assyrian Saloon. This was built originally on the side of a small spur of the mountain near Sakkârah for Ur-ari-enPtaḥ, a royal scribe and councillor who flourished in the reign of Pepi II Nefer-ka-Rā, about B.C. 3100. It is interesting to note that two false doors are found on the south wall of this mastaba, one for Ur-åri-en-Ptah and one for his wife Khent-kaut-s, and that the former contains a list of names of about ninety canonical offerings. The decorations of maṣṭabas never include figures of gods, or the emblems which at a later period were considered sacred.

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The next form of the tomb was the pyramid,' which is to all intents and purposes merely a maṣṭaba built on a square base, with the greater part of it above the surface of the ground. It contained a long passage, with a sarcophagus chamber, or mummy chamber, at the end of it. The place of the mastaba chamber was taken by a small temple, or chapel, built outside the pyramid, in which funerary gifts and offerings were made; the pit of the mastaba was represented by a long passage, which sloped either upwards or downwards; and the mummy-chamber in each case was substantially the same. The principal pyramids of Egypt are those of Abû Roâsh, Gizah, Zâwyet al-'Aryân, Abû-Şîr, Sakkârah, Lisht, Dahshûr, Al-Lâhûn, Hawârah, and Kulla. In the Egyptian Sûdân. there are pyramids at Kurrû, Zûma, Tankâsi, Gebel Barkal, Nûrî, and Bagrawîr, but all these are inferior in design and construction to the pyramids of Egypt. The latest of the pyramid tombs in the Sûdân were built probably during the first or second century A.D. by a series of native queens, each of whom bore the name of "Candace." A great many theories, chiefly of an astronomical character, have been formulated about the Pyramids of Gizah: but it is now generally thought that they were tombs and nothing else, and there is no evidence to justify us in believing that they

1 The word "pyramid" seems to be derived from the Egyptian PEREMUS , which probably means "a building with a sloping side.”

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A section of the Second Pyramid of Gizah, built by Khafra (Chephren), showing a piece of the original casing at the top, underground passage, and mummy chamber.

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were built by any of the Hebrew patriarchs, or that they were the "Granaries of Joseph," or that they contain chambers filled with gold and precious stones, which have not yet been discovered or cleared out. The kings of the XIIth dynasty followed the example of their predecessors of the Vth and VIth dynasties, and built pyramids for their tombs, but they were on a much smaller scale. The pyramids of Amenemḥāt I and Usertsen I were at Lisht, those of Amenemhāt II and Usertsen III were at Dahshûr, the pyramid of Usertsen II was at Al-Lahûn, and that of Amenemhāt III was at Hawârah. Nobles and high officials built pyramidal tombs, usually about

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Entrance to the tomb of Khnemu-hetep, an official, at Beni Hasan.

XIIth dynasty.

30 feet high, which were supposed to contain the three essential parts of the tomb, the upper chamber, the pit, or shaft, and the mummy chamber; but as a matter of fact, the body was buried in the brickwork which formed the base of such a pyramid; there was no pit, and the pyramid itself represented the upper chamber.

Rock-hewn tombs.-The pyramid tomb was suitable for regions where the ground was flat, but the Egyptians who dwelt in places near mountains began at an early period of history to hew tombs in them. Thus at Aswân (Syene) the mountains on the west bank of the Nile contain three tiers

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