Dynasty.]

On the other side of the wall was constructed a hiding-place in the form of
either a high and narrow cell, or a passage without outlet. To this hiding-
place archaeologists have given the Arab name of "_serdab_." Most mastabas
contain but one; others contain three or four (fig. 130). These _serdabs_
communicated neither with each other nor with the chapel; and are, as it
were, buried in the masonry (fig. 131). If connected at all with the outer
world, it is by means of an aperture in the wall about as high up as a
man's head (fig. 132), and so small that the hand can with difficulty pass
through it. To this orifice came the priests, with murmured prayers and
perfumes of incense. Within lurked the Double, ready to profit by these
memorial rites, or to accept them through the medium of his statues. As
when he lived upon earth, the man needed a body in which to exist. His
corpse, disfigured by the process of embalmment, bore but a distant
resemblance to its former self. The mummy, again, was destructible, and
might easily be burned, dismembered, scattered to the winds. Once it had
disappeared, what was to become of the Double? The portrait statues walled
up inside the _serdab_ became, when consecrated, the stone, or wooden,
bodies of the defunct. The pious care of his relatives multiplied these
bodies, and consequently multiplied the supports of the Double. A single
body represented a single chance of existence for the Double; twenty bodies
represented twenty such chances. For the same reason, statues also of his
wife, his children, and his servants were placed with the statues of the
deceased, the servants being modelled in the act of performing their
domestic duties, such as grinding corn, kneading dough, and applying a coat
of pitch to the inside surfaces of wine-jars. As for the figures which were
merely painted on the walls of the chapel, they detached themselves, and
assumed material bodies inside the _serdab_. Notwithstanding these
precautions, all possible means were taken to guard the remains of the
fleshly body from natural decay and the depredations of the spoiler. In the
tomb of Ti, an inclined passage, starting from the middle of the first
hall, leads from the upper world to the sepulchral vault; but this is
almost a solitary exception. Generally, the vault is reached by way of a
vertical shaft constructed in the centre of the platform (fig. 133), or,
more rarely, in a corner of the chapel. The depth