Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/382

 292 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. more numerous than those of kings, do not, Hke the latter, belong to a single period in the national history. The most ancient among them date back to the eleventh dynasty. There are some also of the Sait period, and a few contemporary with the Ptolemies and the Roman emperors. But by far the greater number belong to that epoch which saw^ Thebes promoted to be the capital of the whole country, to the centuries, namely, between Amosis, the conqueror of the Hyksos, and the last of the Ramessides. These tombs are distinguised by great variety, but, before noticing the principal types to which they may be referred, the points which distinguish them from the royal burying-places should be indicated. The private sepulchre is never subdivided Fig. 186. — Plan and section of a royal tomb. [Description de F Egypte, vol. ii., pi. 79.) like those of the kings. This subdivision is to be explained by the exceptional position of the sovereign mid-way between his subjects and the national deities. A funerary chapel cut in the sides of the mountain would obviously be too small for the purposes to which the commemorative part of the tomb of a Rameses or a Seti would be put. On the other hand, no private individual could hope to receive royal honours nor to associate his memory with the worship of the great Egyptian gods. We find that for him the chapel always remains closely connected with the mummy chamber. Sometimes it is in front of it, sometimes above it, but in neither case does it ever fail to torm an integral part of the tomb, so that the latter preserves at once its traditional divisions and its indissoluble unitv.