Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/143

 ānch t'eta, is among the few words written upon the wooden coffin, now in the British Museum, of king Mykerinos, of the third pyramid. Neb ānch, "Lord of life," is one of the names given to the sarcophagus. In the very ancient inscription of Una, the coffin is called hen en ānchiu, "the chest of the living." It is only evil spirits who are spoken of in the sacred writings of the Egyptians as "the dead."

The ancient Egyptian tomb consisted of three essential parts: (1) a chamber above ground, entered by a door, which appears to have always remained open; (2) a corridor, now commonly known as the serdab, in the interior of the masonry, containing statues of the deceased; and (3) a pit, sunk to a considerable depth through the rock, and communicating with the sepulchral vault hollowed in the rock, and containing the sarcophagus of the dead. The chamber (which sometimes consisted of several rooms) was the only part accessible to human foot. Its walls were often covered with pictures, but the most essential portion of it was a tablet invariably facing the east. At the foot of this,