Chapter 4 (part 9)

4 A discussion on the method of depicting this altar on Egyptian monuments by Borchardt may be found in Aeg. Zeitschrift , Bd. XXXI., p. i (Die Darstellung innen verzierter Schalen auf aeg. Denkmälern). 6 Among others, (1) ###, (2) ###, (3) ###, (4) ###; the word incense is written twice, ###. Some of these appear in the lists of offerings made for Unas (l. 147) and for Teta (11. 125, 131, 133; see Recueil de Travaux , 1884, plate 2). 6 ###. 7 The sculptor had no room for the ### belonging to ###.] {p. xvii} of unguents, thy thousands of changes of apparel, thy thousands of oxen, and thy thousands of bullocks," enables us to recognise that ritual in the text inscribed upon the pyramid of Teta in the Vth dynasty, from which the above promise is taken.[1] Thus the traditional evidence of the text on the coffin of Menthu-hetep and the scene on the monument of Shera support one another, and together they prove beyond a doubt that a form of the Book of the Dead was in use at least in the period of the earliest dynasties, and that sepulchral ceremonies connected therewith were duly performed.[2] The Book of the Dead in the IVth dynasty. With the IVth dynasty we have an increased number of monuments, chiefly sepulchral, which give details as to the Egyptian sacerdotal system and the funeral ceremonies which the priests performed.[3] The inscriptions upon the earlier [1. ###. Teta, II. 388, 389. ( Recueil , ed. Maspero, t. v., p. 58.) 2 The arguments brought forward here in proof of the great antiquity of a religious system in Egypt are supplemented in a remarkable manner by the inscriptions found in the mastaba of Seker-kha-baiu at Sakkara. Here we have a man who, like Shera, was a "royal relative" and a priest, but who, unlike him, exercised some of the highest functions of the Egyptian priesthood in virtue of his title xerp hem . (On the ###[*] see Max Müller, Recueil de Travaux , t. ix., p. 166; Brugsch, Aegyptologie , p. 218; and Maspero, Un Manuel de Hiérarchie Égyptienne , p. 9.) Among the offerings named in the tomb are the substances ### and ### which are also mentioned on the stele of Shera of the IInd dynasty, and in the texts of the VIth dynasty. But the tomb of Seker-kha-baiu is different from any other known to us, both as regards the form and cutting of the hieroglyphics, which are in relief, and the way in which they are disposed and grouped. The style of the whole monument is rude and very primitive, and it cannot be attributed to any dynasty later than the second, or even to the second itself; it must, therefore, have been built during the first dynasty, or in the words of MM. Mariette and Maspero, "L'impression générale que l'on reçoit au premier aspect du tombeau No. 5, est celle d'une extrême antiquité. Rien en effet de ce que nous sommes habitués à voir dans les autres tombeaux ne se retrouve ici . . . Le monument . . . .