. Was a supply of meat required to
last for eternity? It was enough, no doubt, to represent the several parts
of an ox or a gazelle--the shoulder, the leg, the ribs, the breast, the
heart, the liver, the head, properly prepared for the spit; but it was
equally easy to retrace the whole history of the animal--its birth, its
life in the pasture-lands, its slaughter, the cutting up of the carcass,
and the presentation of the joints. So also as regarded the cakes and
bread-offerings, there was no reason why the whole process of tillage,
harvesting, corn-threshing, storage, and dough-kneading should not be
rehearsed. Clothing, ornaments, and furniture served in like manner as a
pretext for the introduction of spinners, weavers, goldsmiths, and cabinet-
makers. The master is of superhuman proportions, and towers above his
people and his cattle. Some prophetic tableaux show him in his funeral
bark, speeding before the wind with all sail set, having started on his way
to the next world the very day that he takes possession of his new abode
(fig. 128). Elsewhere, we see him as actively superintending his imaginary
vassals as formerly he superintended his vassals of flesh and blood (fig.
129). Varied and irregular as they may appear, these scenes are not placed
at random upon the walls. They all converge towards that semblance of a
door which was supposed to communicate with the interior of the tomb. Those
nearest to the door represent the sacrifice and the offering; the earlier
stages of preparation and preliminary work being depicted in retrograde
order as that door is left farther and farther behind. At the door itself,
the figure of the master seems to await his visitors and bid them welcome.

[Illustration: Fig. 130. Plan of serdab in mastaba at Gizeh, Fourth
Dynasty.]

The details are of infinite variety. The inscriptions run to a less or
greater length according to the caprice of the scribe; the false door loses
its architectural character, and is frequently replaced by a mere stela
engraved with the name and rank of the master; yet, whether large or small,
whether richly decorated or not decorated at all, the chapel is always the
dining-room--or, rather, the larder--to which the dead man has access when
he feels hungry.

[Illustration: Fig. 131.--Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Rahotep
at Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.]

[Illustration: Fig. 132.--Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Thenti I.
at Sakkarah, Fourth