them elegant. A
funerary cone consists of a long, conical mass of clay, stamped at the
larger end with a few rows of hieroglyphs stating the name, parentage, and
titles of the deceased, the whole surface being coated with a whitish wash.
These are simulacra of votive cakes intended for the eternal nourishment of
the Double. Many of the vases buried in tombs of this period are painted to
imitate alabaster, granite, basalt, bronze, and even gold; and were cheap
substitutes for those vases made in precious materials which wealthy
mourners were wont to lavish on their dead. Among those especially intended
to contain water or flowers, some are covered with designs drawn in red and
black (fig. 221), such as concentric lines and circles (fig. 222),
meanders, religious emblems (fig. 223), cross-lines resembling network,
festoons of flowers and buds, and long leafy stems carried downward from
the neck to the body of the vase, and upward from the body of the vase to
the neck. Those in the tomb of Sennetmu were decorated on one side with a
large necklace, or collar, like the collars found upon mummies, painted in
very bright colours to simulate natural flowers or enamels. Canopic vases
in baked clay, though rarely met with under the Eighteenth Dynasty, became
more and more common as the prosperity of Thebes declined. The heads upon
the lids are for the most part prettily turned, especially the human
heads.[57] Modelled with the hand, scooped out to diminish the weight, and
then slowly baked, each was finally painted with the colours especially
pertaining to the genius whose head was represented. Towards the time of
the Twentieth Dynasty, it became customary to enclose the bodies of sacred
animals in vases of this type. Those found near Ekhmim contain jackals and
hawks; those of Sakkarah are devoted to serpents, eggs, and mummified rats;
those of Abydos hold the sacred ibis. These last are by far the finest. On
the body of the vase, the protecting goddess Khuit is depicted with
outspread wings, while Horus and Thoth are seen presenting the bandage and
the unguent vase; the whole subject being painted in blue and red upon a
white ground. From the time of the Greek domination, the national poverty
being always on the increase, baked clay was much used for coffins as well
as for canopic vases. In the Isthmus of Suez, at Ahnas el Medineh, in the
Fayum, at Asuan, and in Nubia, we find whole cemeteries in which the
sarcophagi are made of b