When space permitted, the vault was excavated immediately below the chapel.  The shaft was sometimes sunk in a corner of one of the chambers, and sometimes outside, in front of the door of the tomb.  In the great cemeteries, as for instance at Thebes and Memphis, the superposition of these three parts—­the chapel, the shaft, and the vault—­was not always possible.  If the shaft were carried to its accustomed depth, there was sometimes the risk of breaking into tombs excavated at a lower level.  This danger was met either by driving a long passage into the rock, and then sinking the shaft at the farther end, or by substituting a slightly sloping or horizontal disposition of the parts for the old vertical arrangement of the mastaba model.  The passage in this case opens from the centre of the end wall, its average length being from 20 to 130 feet.  The sepulchral vault is always small and plain, as well as the passage.  Under the Theban dynasties, as under the Memphite kings, the Soul dispensed with decorations; but whenever the walls of the vault are decorated, the figures and inscriptions are found to relate chiefly to the life of the Soul, and very slightly to the life of the Double.  In the tomb of Horhotep, which is of the time of the Usertesens, and in similar rock-cut sepulchres, the walls (except on the side of the door) are divided into two registers.  The upper row belongs to the Double, and contains, besides the table of offerings, pictured representations of the same objects which are seen in certain mastabas of the Sixth Dynasty; namely, stuffs, jewels, arms, and perfumes, all needful to Horhotep for the purpose of imparting eternal youth to his limbs.  The lower register belonged to both the Soul and the Double, and is inscribed with extracts from a variety of liturgical writings, such as The Book of the Dead, the Ritual of Embalmment, and the Funeral Ritual, all of which were possessed of magic properties which protected the Soul and supported the Double.  The stone sarcophagus, and even the coffin, are also covered with closely-written inscriptions.  Precisely as the stela epitomised the whole chapel, so did the sarcophagus and coffin epitomise the sepulchral chamber, thus forming, as it were, a vault within a vault.  Texts, tableaux, all thereon depicted, treat of the life of the Soul, and of its salvation in the world to come.

At Thebes, as at Memphis, the royal tombs are those which it is most necessary to study, in order to estimate the high degree of perfection to which the decoration of passages and sepulchral chambers was now carried.  The most ancient were situated either in the plain or on the southern slopes of the western mountain; and of these, no remains are extant.  The mummies of Amenhotep I., and Thothmes III., of Sekenenra, and Aahhotep have survived the dwellings of solid stone designed for their protection.  Towards the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty, however, all the best places