Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/386

 296 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. employment of vertical wells instead of inclined planes as approaches to the mummy chamber. The most extensive of all the llieban catacombs is that of a private individual, the priest Petamounoph (Fig. 191).-^ In this the galleries have not less than 895 feet of total length, besides which there are a large number of chambers, the whole being covered with painted reliefs. But this tomb is quite exceptional. The great majority, those of Rekhmara, for instance, and others excavated in the hill of Sheikh-Abd-el- Gournak, are composed of two or three chambers at most, united by corridors. The mummy pit opens sometimes upon the corridor between two of the chambers, sometimes upon the innermost chamber, sometimes upon a corrider opening out of the latter. Rhind tells us that he followed one of these corridors for about Fig. 190. — A tomb of Apis. From Maiiette. 300 feet beyond the chamber without arriving at the mummy pit, the air then became too bad for further progress.- The chamber for the funerary celebration is easily recognized by its decorations. It is sometimes the first, but more often the second in order, in which case the first acts as a sort of vestibule. A considerable number of tombs are very simple in arrangement. The door gives access to a rectangular chamber, from 6 to 10 feet high and 10 to 12 wide, which extends, in a direction parallel to the wall, for from 12 to 24 feet. This chamber is the funerary chapel. From its posterior wall a passage opens which is nearly ^ This view is obtained by a series of liorizontal and vertical sections in the rock to the right of the galleries. By this operation we are enabled to show the subterranean parts of the tomb. 2 Rhind, Thebes, etc. p. 43.