d religion. It is
perhaps significant that the chief sins of the kings of the
Fourth dynasty, so execrated by the Egyptian priests in the
Ptolemaic period, were sins against the great gods. The other
charges are for the most part plainly slanders. In practice every
king whose family remained in power was justified before gods and
men, and took his place among the gods in the islands of the
blessed in the northern part of the heavens.

The dead body was laid in the grave, supplied with all these
magic texts which were to restore and revive the soul and guide
it across waters and through dangers to the place of Osiris. But
the chapel was not wanting, the cult of the _ka_ was maintained,
the statues were placed in the hidden room, the food and drink
were brought daily to the door of the grave. Thus, while a
special immortality was evolved for the king, the funeral customs
continue to show the same service of the _ka_ as in the earlier
period.

In the Sixth Dynasty, there is a return to the older practice of
placing objects in the grave itself. At present we are unable to
point out the reasons for this. Possibly experience had taught
men that endowments and craved walls left to the care of
descendants were insecure supports for a life after death which
was to last forever. At any rate, the custom arose of making
small models in wood or stone or metal of those scenes and
objects which were carved in relief on the walls of the chapel,
--models of houses, granaries, of kitchens, of brickyards;
models of herds and servants and soldiers; models of boats and
ships; models of dance-halls with the man seated drinking wine,
around him musicians, before him dancing girls; models of swords,
of vessels, of implements. Poorer people must be contented with
poorer things, down to the peasant who is buried with the few
little necessary pots and pans of his daily life. But always, in
every grave, the chapel, small or great, is there. The endowment
of funerary priests continues. Every man, I suppose, however
poor, had some one to make at least one offering at his grave.
And so it was down to the New Empire.

VI. THE MIDDLE EMPIRE

During the Middle Empire, the burial and offering customs show
the persistence of the old belief in life after death as on
earth. Pots, vessels, tools, weapons, ornaments, clothing, and
models of scenes from life, continue to be placed in the burial
chamber. The walls of the offering c