[168] This is a word of Persian origin adopted by the Arabs. Its strict meaning is a dark subterranean opening, cave, or passage.
[169] The tomb of Ti had two serdabs as well as three chambers; one of these was close to the door, the other in the innermost part of the mastaba. In the latter several statues of Ti were found, the best preserved being now in the museum at Boulak.
[170] In a Theban tomb described by M. Maspero (Étude sur quelques Peintures funéraires) the tenant, Harmhabi, is made to speak thus: "I have come, I have received my bread; joining the embalmed offerings to my members, I have breathed the scent of the perfumes and incense." It is also possible that this conduit may have been intended to permit of the free circulation of the double, to allow it to pass from its supporting statues to the chapel in which it is honoured. This curious idea, that the spirit of the dead can pass through a very small hole, but that it cannot dispense with an opening altogether, is found among many nations. The Iroquois contrived an opening of very small diameter in their tombs, through which the soul of the dead could pass and repass. See Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, vol. i. p. 192.
[171] There is an example of this in a mastaba at Gizeh (Fig. 120). See No. 95 of Lepsius (Denkmæler, vol. i. p. 29; vol. iii. pl. 44).
[172] This figure is a composition by Mariette for the purpose of showing the relation between the subterranean and constructed parts of the tomb. (Notice des principaux Monuments, p. 22.) [It shows, however, the well opening from the floor of the upper chamber, an arrangement which is not characteristic of the mastaba.—Ed.]
[173] The broken up and decayed remains of wooden boats have been found in two or three mummy pits (Mariette, Les Tombes de l'Ancien Empire, p. 17). They originally formed part, perhaps, of the boats upon which the corpse was transported across the Nile to the nearest point of the western bank to the tomb. There can be no doubt that, in placing them in the well, the survivors believed that they were serving the deceased. Both the bas-reliefs in the tomb and the Ritual contain many representations of the soul navigating the regions of Ament (see the upper section of [Fig. 98]). In certain Theban tombs, models of fully rigged boats have been found; there are some of them in the Louvre (Salle Civile, case K). [There are two in the British Museum, and one, a very fine one, in the museum at Liverpool.—Ed.]
[174] Description de l'Égypte, vol. v. p. 647, and Atlas, Ant. vol. v. pl. 16, Figs. 3, 4, and 5.
[175] History of Egypt (English version, Murray, 1879), vol. i. pp. 72, 73.
[176] Fialin de Persigny, De la Destination et de l'Utilité permanente des Pyramides d'Égypte et de Nubie contre les Irruptions sablonneuses du Désert, Développements du Mémoire adressé à l'Académie des Sciences le 14 Juillet, 1844, suivie d'une nouvelle interprétation de la Fable d'Osiris et d'Isis. Paris, 1845, gr. in-8.
[177] Herodotus, ii. 127.