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Memphis; Tombs and Pyramids of Sakkara 337
dead man's double. If food was painted on the walls he did
not feel hunger ; if the conciliation of deities was attended
to in the same way he suffered no inconvenience at their
hands.
As the dead Egyptian wished to enjoy the same luxuries
and pleasures that he possessed in life, the whole life of the
wealthy of that day is depicted on their tombs. Their flocks
and their herds, the artisan's and craftsman's work of their
slaves, their hunting, their banqueting, their sacrificing, are
all carved in exquisite low-relief, or depicted m bright
colours, on the walls of the tombs of Thi and Mereruka and
Ptah-Hetep. They even have make-believe doors in the
steles for the use of the double.
The tomb of Mereruka has a special feature of its own :
the life-sized figure of the occupant standing at the head of
steps as if he was about to descend into the tomb—a most
wonderful and life-like piece of sculpture. From it, and the
pieces like it in the Cairo Museum, one knows the Egyptians
as they were before the days of Joseph and Moses— mild-
eyed, soft-featured, light-coloured. The statues are realistic ;
the bas-reliefs, on the other hand, are so conventionalised
that they tell us nothing of the type, though they are eloquent
of the life.
These tombs are brilliantly lit with sunlight, and have
no trace of damp or malodour. They are entered like an
Etruscan tomb—down a staircase or ramp laid bare when the
earth which concealed their entrance was removed. They
are very bright and cheerful. The only thing against them
is that they look like imitations of themselves. Some of
the reproductions of Etruscan tombs in the Vatican look
quite as real.
The piece de resistance at Sakkara is the celebrated catacomb
of the Apis bulls. Its extent, like its antiquity, is
immense. Its galleries are more than a thousand feet long.
The oldest of the tombs date back to the time of Rameses
the Great. I have seldom been in so eerie a place. We
were taken down into the bowels of the earth, and found
ourselves in a vast subterranean gallery in some places fifty
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