Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/247

 Sepulchral Architecture. 157 of the wider parts of the Nile valley, a-burying-place in the Libyan chain would be very inconvenient both for the transport of the dead, and for the sepulchral duties of the survivors.^ Each morning sees the sun rise as youthful and ardent as the morning before. Why then should not man, after completing his subterranean journey and triumphing over the terrors of Ament, cast off the darkness of the tomb and again see the light of day ? This undying hope was revivified at each dawn as by a new promise, and the Egyptians followed out the analogy by the way in which they disposed their sepulchres. They were placed in the west of their country, towards the setting sun, but their doors, the openings through which their inmates would one day regain the light, were turned to the east. In the necropolis of Memphis, the door of nearly every tomb is turned to the east,^ and there is not a single stele which does not face in that direction.^ In the ne- cropolis of Abydos, both door and stele are more often turned towards the south, that is towards the sun at its zenith.'* But neither at Memphis, at Abydos, nor at Thebes is there a tomb which is lighted from the west or presents its inscription to the setting sun.^ Thus, from the shadowy depths where they dwell, the dead have their eyes turned to that quarter of the heavens where the life-giving flame is each day rekindled, and seem to be waiting for the ray which is to destroy their night and to rouse them from their long repose.^ 1 Among the cemeteries of the right bank we may mention that of Tell-el- Amarna; where the tombs would have been too far from the city had they been dug in the Libyan Chain. The cemeteries of Beni-Hassan and of EiUthyia {El-Kab) are also in the Arab Chain. In spite of these exceptions, however, the west was the real quarter of the dead, their natural habitation, as is proved by the tearful funeral songs translated by M. Maspero : " The mourners before the ever-to-be praised Hor-Khom say, 'O chief, as thou goest toward the West, the gods lament thee.' The friends who close the procession repeat, ' To the West, to the West, oh praiseworthy one, to the excellent West ! ' " Maspero, 'j5'/«^^ sur quelques Pemtures funeraires (Jouj-nal asiatique, February-April, 1881, p. 148). 2 " It is so," says Mariette, *' four times out of five." {Les Tomhes de f Ancien Empire, in the Reinie arch'eologique, new series, vol. xix. p. 1 2). ^ "In the further wall of the chamber, and invariably facing eastwards, is a stele." {Ibidem, p. 14.) ^ The tombs in the Arab Chain form, of course, an exception to this rule. The unusual circumstances which took them eastward of the river forced them also to neglect the traditional law. ^ The symbolic connection established by man between the course of the .sun
 * Mariette, Abydos, vol. ii. p. 43