Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/235

 Sepulchral Architecture. 145 Besides which there were priests attached to each necropolis, who, for certain fees, officiated at each tomb in turn. They were identified by Mariette upon some of the bas-rehefs at Sakkarah. Their services were retained much in the same way as masses are bought in our days.^ The same sentiment led to the burial with the dead of all arms, clothes, jewels, and other objects of which they might have need in the next life. We know what treasures of this kind have been obtained from the Egyptian tombs and how they fill the cases of our museums. But neither was this habit peculiar to Egypt. It was common to all ancient people whether civilized or barbarous. Traces are to be found even in the early traditions of the Hellenic race of a time when, like those Scythians described by Herodotus,^ the Greeks sacrificed, at the death of a chief, his wives and servants that they might accompany him to the next world. When she began to reveal herself in the arts Egypt was already too far civilized for such practices as these ; thanks to the simultaneous development of science, art and religion, she found means to give the same advantages to her dead without permitting Scythian cruelties. Those personal attendants and domestic officers whose services would be so necessary in another life, were secured to them at a small expense ; instead of slaying them at the door of the tomb, they were represented upon its walls in all the variety of their occupations and in the actual moment of labour. So too with all objects of luxury or necessity which the double would wish to have at hand, as for instance his food and drink. ^ A custom which would seem to have established itself a little later may be referred to the same desire ; we mean the habit of placing in the tomb those statuettes which we meet with in such vast numbers after the commencement of the second Theban Empire.^ Mariette obtained some from tombs of the twelfth 1 Tombes de T Ancien Empire, p. 87. ^ Herodotus, iv. 71,72. ^ In a few rare cases the objects destined for the nourishment of the double are represented in the round instead of being painted upon the wall. In the tomb of the personage called Atta, a wooden table, supporting terra-cotta vases and plucked geese carved in calcareous stone, has been found. (Mariette, Tombes de FAncien Empire, p. 17.) The vases must have been full of water when they were placed in the tomb ; the stone geese may be compared to the papier-m&che loaves of the modern stage. VOL. L U
 * All Egyptian collections contain coffers of painted wood, often decorated in