Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/238

 the first settlement of the Saxons on English shores. Nekht, it is true, was, in a certain limited sense, a public official. He was a "temple servant" of Ammon, and his sister, of whom he obviously thought a great deal, was also attached to the religious ritual and services of that deity; but though he never fails to give himself and her their sacerdotal descriptions on his tomb-walls, he seems to have done so rather as a matter of private devoutness and piety than in any official spirit. The exquisite little tomb, in fact, which has only been opened six or seven years, and the wall-paintings on the ceiling, which are in many places still as clear in design and as beautifully fresh in colour as when they were put on more than thirty centuries ago, had evidently been the delight of its future occupant during its construction and decoration.

A pious Theban gentleman of the Middle Empire "made his soul" by making himself a costly and artistic sepulchre, just as a Western devotee of our own day makes it