[Illustration: Fig. 128.--Wall-painting, funeral voyage; mastaba of Urkhuû,
Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.]

[Illustration: Fig. 129.--Wall-scene from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth
Dynasty.]

The living having taken their departure, the Double was supposed to come
out of his house and feed. In principle, this ceremony was bound to be
renewed year by year, till the end of time; but the Egyptians ere long
discovered that this could not be. After two or three generations, the dead
of former days were neglected for the benefit of those more recently
departed. Even when a pious foundation was established, with a revenue
payable for the expenses of the funerary repasts and of the priests whose
duty it was to prepare them, the evil hour of oblivion was put off for only
a little longer. Sooner or later, there came a time when the Double was
reduced to seek his food among the town refuse, and amid the ignoble and
corrupt filth which lay rejected on the ground. Then, in order that the
offerings consecrated on the day of burial might for ever preserve their
virtues, the survivors conceived the idea of drawing and describing them on
the walls of the chapel (fig. 127). The painted or sculptured reproduction
of persons and things ensured the reality of those persons and things for
the benefit of the one on whose account they were executed. Thus the Double
saw himself depicted upon the walls in the act of eating and drinking, and
he ate and drank. This notion once accepted, the theologians and artists
carried it out to the fullest extent. Not content with offering mere
pictured provisions, they added thereto the semblance of the domains which
produced them, together with the counterfeit presentment of the herds,
workmen, and slaves belonging to the same. Was a supply of meat required to
last for eternity? It was enough, no doubt, to represent the several parts