by proper recitation, secure to the spirit of the dead all its
daily needs. This offering niche is the door of the other world
--symbolically and actually. In many graves the niche is carved
to represent a door--sometimes opening in, and sometimes
opening out. Moreover, in several cases the figure of the dead is
carved half emerging from the opening door--a figure in all
ways like the figure of the dead as he is represented in the
scenes from life. Beyond this door lives the spirit of the dead.

In many offering chambers there is a small hole in the wall,
either in the offering niche or in another place. If this hole be
properly lighted and the space beyond has not been changed by
decay or violation, the light falls on the face of a statue of
the dead looking forth to the world of the living. For behind the
wall is another chamber, closed except for this small hole. This
hidden chamber contains statues of the dead often accompanied by
statues of his family and his servants. These statues of the dead
are labeled with his name, and are said to be the abode of his
spirit, his _ka_, as the Egyptians called it. Moreover, all the
offering formulas named the _ka_ as the recipient of the food and
drink. The duplicate spirit of the man is his _ka_. In these
statues we have, then, a simulacrum of the man provided for use
of his _ka_--perhaps to assist the _ka_ to the persistence of
his earthly form, and to the remembrance of his name. But what
were the uses of the subsidiary statues? What spirit resided in
them? The man's son in his turn died, and a similar room was made
for him with his statue and his subsidiary statues. Did his _ka_
live both in the statue placed with his father's statue and also
in the statue in his own grave? We have no answer. Probably the
Egyptian mind never formulated the difficulty.