[140] All Egyptian collections contain coffers of painted wood, often decorated in the most brilliant fashion, which served to hold these statues when they were placed in the tomb. The size and the richness of their ornament depended upon the wealth of the deceased for who they were made.
[141] Pietschmann (Der Egyptische Fetischdienst, &c., p. 155), has well grasped the character and significance of these statuettes. Conf. Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie égyptienne, vol. v. See also, in connection with the personality attributed to them and to the services which were expected from them, a note by M. Maspero, Sur une Tablette appartenant à M. Rogers. (Recueil de Travaux, vol. ii. p. 12.)
[142] De Rougé, Mémoire sur les Monuments des six premières Dynasties (p. 80 et seq.). Conf. Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, pp. 88-92.
[143] See Mariette, Tombes de l'Ancien Empire, p. 88.
[144] This word, σύριγξ (flute), was employed by the Greeks to designate those long subterranean galleries cut in the rock of the necropolis at Thebes, in the valley called the Valley of the Kings; modern egyptologists apply it in a more general sense to all tombs cut deeply into the flanks of the mountain. For the reason which led the Greeks to adopt a term which now seems rather fantastic, see Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie égyptienne. The chief passages in ancient authors in which the term is applied either to the subterranean excavations of Egypt or to other galleries of the same kind, are brought together by Jomard in the third volume of the Description (Antiquités, vol. iii. pp. 12-14).
[145] Journal asiatique, May-June, 1880, pp. 419, 420.
[146] See above, [Figs. 87] and [91].
[147] We borrow the translation of this inscription, as well as the reflections which precede it, from M. Maspero (Conférence, p. 382). According to M. de Rougé, it dates from about the twelfth dynasty. An invocation of the same kind is to be found in another epigraph of the same period, the inscription of Amoni-Amenemhaït, hereditary prince of the nome of Meh, at Beni-Hassan. See Maspero, La Grande Inscription de Beni-Hassan, p. 171 (Recueil de Travaux, etc., vol. i. 4to.).
[148] Maspero, Conférence, p. 282.
[149] 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 Eilithyia (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, Étude sur quelques Peintures funéraires (Journal asiatique, February-April, 1881, p. 148).