are very simple, consisting of one or two horizontal lines above, and one or two vertical lines down each side, with the addition perhaps of a sitting or standing figure.  These inscriptions contain a prayer, as well as the name, titles, and parentage of the deceased.  The chapel generally consists of a single chamber, either square or oblong, with a flat or a slightly vaulted ceiling.  Light is admitted only through the doorway.  Sometimes a few pillars, left standing in the rock at the time of excavation, give this chamber the aspect of a little hypostyle hall.  Four such pillars decorate the chapels of Ameni and Khnumhotep at Beni Hasan (fig. 153).  Other chapels there contain six or eight, and are very irregular in plan.  One tomb, unfinished, was in the first instance a simple oblong hall, with a barrel roof and six columns.  Later on, it was enlarged on the right side, the new part forming a kind of flat-roofed portico supported on four columns (fig. 154).

[Illustration:  Fig. 153.—­Plan of tomb of Khnumhotep, at Beni Hasan.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 154.—­Plan of unfinished tomb, Beni Hasan.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 155.—­Funeral processions and ceremonies from wall-painting in tomb of Manna, Thebes, Nineteenth Dynasty.]

To form a serdab in the solid rock was almost impossible; while on the other hand, movable statues, if left in a room accessible to all comers, would be exposed to theft or mutilation.  The serdab, therefore, was transformed, and combined with the stela of the ancient mastabas.  The false door of the olden time became a niche cut in the end wall, almost always facing the entrance.  Statues of the deceased and his wife, carved in the solid rock, were there enthroned.  The walls were decorated with scenes of offerings, and the entire decoration of the tomb converged towards the niche, as that of the mastaba converged towards the stela.  The series of tableaux is, on the whole, much the same as of old, though with certain noteworthy additions.  The funeral procession, and the scene where the deceased enters into possession of his tomb, both merely indicated in the mastaba, are displayed in full upon the walls of the Theban sepulchre.  The mournful cortege is there, with the hired mourners, the troops of friends, the bearers of offerings, the boats for crossing the river, and the catafalque drawn by oxen.  It arrives at the door of the tomb.  The mummy, placed upright upon his feet, receives the farewell of his family; and the last ceremonies, which are to initiate him into the life beyond the grave, are duly represented (fig. 155).  The sacrifices, with all the preliminary processes, as tillage, seed-growing, harvesting, stock-breeding, and the practice of various kinds of handicraft, are either sculptured or painted, as before.  Many details, however, which are absent from tombs of the earlier dynasties are here given, while others which are invariably met with in the neighbourhood of the