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10. West wall of a chamber in the tomb of Ptah-hetep. Vth dynasty.

The maş taba pit and sarcophagus chamber.

Characteristics

of the earliest

to conduct to them the smoke of incense or perfume. The interior of the serdâb is never inscribed, and nothing but statues, inscribed with the names and titles of the persons whom they represented, have ever been found in them. Statues were at times placed in the court in front of the maṣṭaba. The pit, square or rectangular in form, but never round, leads to the chamber where the mummy was laid; it is situated in the middle of the greater axis of the mastaba nearer to the north than the south, and varies in depth from 40 to 80 feet. The top part of the pit where it passes through the platform on which the mastaba stands, is built of fine large stones. There was neither ladder nor staircase, leading to the funereal chamber at the bottom of the pit, hence the coffin and the mummy when once there were inaccessible. At the bottom of the pit, on the south side, is an opening into a passage from four to five feet high; this passage leads obliquely to the south-east, in the same direction. as the upper chamber, and soon after increases in size in all directions, and thus becomes the sarcophagus chamber. This chamber is exactly under the upper chamber, and the relatives of the deceased in standing there, would have the deceased beneath their feet. In one corner of the lower chamber stood the rectangular sarcophagus made of fine calcareous stone, rose granite or black basalt; the top of the cover was rounded. The upper chamber contained no statues, ushabtiu figures, amulets, canopic jars, nor any of the numerous things which formed the furniture of the tomb in later times; in the sarcophagus were, at times, a pillow or a few vases, but little else. When the body had been placed in the sarcophagus, and the cover of the sarcophagus had been cemented down on it, the entrance to the passage at the bottom of the pit was walled up, the pit itself was filled with stones, earth and sand, and the deceased was thus preserved from all ordinary chances of disturbance.

The tombs of the maṣṭaba class stop suddenly at the end of the first six dynasties; of tombs belonging to one of the first three dynasties, M. Mariette found 4 at Sakkârah; of mastabas. the IVth dynasty 43; of the Vth dynasty 61; and of the VIth dynasty 25. The mastabas of the first three dynasties

have but one upper chamber, which is built of brick, the stelæ are very deeply cut, the hieroglyphics and the figures are in relief, and display more vigour than at any other time; the inscriptions are terse, and the use of phonetic signs less common than in later times. These tombs can hardly be said to be oriented at all, for they are, at times, as much as twelve degrees west of the true north. In the second half of the IVth dynasty, maṣṭabas have a size and extent hitherto unknown; they are either built entirely of black brick or of stone. Their orientation becomes accurate, the figures and hieroglyphics are well executed, the formulæ become fixed, and the statues in the serdâbs, which are very numerous, unite the vigour of those of the first half of the IVth with the delicacy of those of the Vth dynasty. The famous wooden statue of the Shêkh el-Beled belongs to this time. In the Vth dynasty maṣṭabas are not so large, but they are always built of stone; inside there are more chambers than one, approached by long passages, and the statues are not so characteristic as those of the latter half of the IVth dynasty. The mastabas of the VIth dynasty show a decided decadence, and lose their fine proportions; the figures are in light relief, the formulæ become longer, and the chambers are built of brick and covered with thin sculptured slabs of stone.

of the

The walls of the upper chambers of maṣṭabas were Ornamen frequently covered with scenes which, according to M. tation Mariette, are without any representation of divinities and mastaba. religious emblems, the names of deities, and characters employed in the course of writing naturally excepted. The inscription which asks the god Anubis to grant a happy burial to the deceased, after a long and happy old age, to make his way easy for him on the roads in the underworld, and to grant the bringing to the tomb a perpetual supply of funereal gifts, is inscribed in bold hieroglyphics over the entrances to the tomb, and upon the most conspicuous places on the stela in the upper chamber. The scenes depicted on the walls of the maṣṭabas are divided by Mariette into three classes: 1, Biographical, 2, Sepulchral, and 3, those relating to funereal gifts. Biographical scenes are found in tombs of all periods.

The deceased is

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Scenes

and in

scriptions.

represented hunting or fishing, taking part in pleasure excursions by water, and listening to music played before him accompanied by the dancing of women; he is also represented as overseer of a number of building operations in which many workmen are employed. It is tolerably certain that these scenes are not fictitious, and that they were painted while the person who hoped to occupy the tomb was still alive, and could direct the labours of the artist. The prayer that the deceased might enter his tomb after a

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Winnowing Wheat. From a Vth dynasty Tomb at Sakkarah.

Netting Wild Fowl. From a Vth dynasty Tomb at Sakkarah.

long and prosperous life has a significance which it could not possess if the tomb were made after his death. The sepulchral scenes refer to the passage of the mummy in a boat to Amenta. The scenes relating to sepulchral gifts

[graphic]

Bakers making Bread. From a Vth dynasty Tomb at Sakkarah.

[graphic]

Cattle on the March. From a Vth dynasty Tomb at Sakkarah,

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