The Egyptians, on the contrary, employed their choicest workmen to decorate their tombs.  The visitor may, gathering together the scattered fragments from this saloon, picture to himself one of the massive solemn vaults of the old Egyptians—­the walls decorated with sepulchral tablets, and beneath each tablet a massive sarcophagus, containing the mummy of the deceased whose actions the tablet records.  Not altogether unlike the vaults of the present day, save that perishable materials suffice for modern notions; whereas the Egyptian provided comforts for the long, long rest, that, according to his creed, would elapse, before the mummy would shake off its bandages, and walk forth bodily once more.  The Egyptian tablets, of which there are a great number scattered about the saloon, are, as the visitor will perceive, of small dimensions, but crowded with mystic hieroglyphics, and ornamental groups of the funereal deities and other subjects.  The writing records the actions and the name of the deceased, together with various religious sentiments; and is therefore, in form and spirit, not unlike the modern epitaph.  This resemblance is not so wonderful as it at first appears, seeing that the same circumstances acted upon the dictator of the old Egyptian epitaph, as those which make the modern widow eloquent.  The most modern of the tablets in the present collection are those executed while Egypt was a Roman state, many are of the time of the Ptolemies, and one is believed to be of a date before the time of Abraham.  This tablet is to the memory of a state officer:  it is marked 212.  The examination of the sarcophagi, will have led the visitor to the southern end of the saloon; and from this point he should once more turn to the north, and examine the sepulchral tablets on the eastern and western walls.  He will notice that numbers of them exactly resemble one another in certain forms; that certain sepulchral scenes are frequently repeated, and that therefore the tablets cannot be said in many cases with certainty, to represent either passages in the life of the deceased, or symbolic images of his career.

First let the visitor remark, numbered 90, a basalt slab, presented to the museum by the Lords of the Admiralty.  It is supposed to have been originally the cover of a stone coffin, in the time of the Ptolemies.  It is remarkable for a Graeco-Egyptian recumbent figure, executed in bas-relief.  The sepulchral tablets marked 128-9-31-32, are in calcareous stone.  The first is that of a scribe, who is receiving a funeral offering from his son; the second is that of Akar-se, who is receiving the offerings of his bereaved family; the third, from Abydos, has similar representations of family offerings, and the fourth is that of the chief keeper of the cattle of Rameses II., named Hara, who prays to Horus, Isis, Nephthys, and Osiris.  The first three tablets are dedicated to Isis.  The visitor may also remark in this neighbourhood a fragment in bas-relief from the tomb near Gizeh, of Afa.  Afa was a palace officer, who is supposed to have flourished about the period of the fourth dynasty.  He is here represented, in company with various members of his family.