which is the longest, descends to a distance of 470 feet, and there remains unfinished.  The same devices to which the pyramid builders had recourse, in order to mislead the spoiler, were adopted by the engineers of the Theban catacombs.  False shafts were sunk which led to nothing, and walls sculptured and painted were built across the passages.  When the burial was over, the entrance was filled up with blocks of rock, and the natural slope of the mountain side was restored as skilfully as might be.

[Illustration:  Fig. 159.—­Wall-painting of the Fields of Aalu, tomb of Rameses III.]

The most complete type of this class of catacomb is that left to us by Seti I.; figures and hieroglyphs alike are models of pure design and elegant execution.  The tomb of Rameses III. already points to decadence.  It is for the most part roughly painted.  Yellow is freely laid on, and the raw tones of the reds and blues are suggestive of the early daubs of our childhood.  Mediocrity ere long reigned supreme, the outlines becoming more feeble, the colour more and more glaring, till the latest tombs are but caricatures of those of Seti I. and Rameses III.  The decoration is always the same, and is based on the same principles as the decoration of the pyramids.  At Thebes as at Memphis, the intention was to secure to the Double the free enjoyment of his new abode, and to usher the Soul into the company of the gods of the solar cycle and the Osirian cycle, as well as to guide it through the labyrinth of the infernal regions.  But the Theban priests exercised their ingenuity to bring before the eyes of the deceased all that which the Memphites consigned to his memory by means of writing, thus enabling him to see what he had formerly been obliged to read upon the walls of his tomb.  Where the texts of the pyramid of Unas relate how Unas, being identified with the sun, navigates the celestial waters or enters the Fields of Aalu, the pictured walls of the tomb of Seti I. show Seti sailing in the solar bark, while a side chamber in the tomb of Rameses III. shows Rameses III. in the Fields of Aalu (fig. 159).  Where the walls of the pyramid of Unas give the prayers recited over the mummy to open his mouth, to restore the use of his limbs, to clothe, to perfume, to feed him, the walls of Seti’s catacomb contain representations of the actual mummy, of the Ka statues which are the supports of his Double, and of the priests who open their mouths, who clothe them, perfume them, and offer them the various meats and drinks of the funeral feast.  The ceilings of the pyramid chambers were sprinkled over with stars to resemble the face of the heavens; but there was nothing to instruct the Soul as to the names of those heavenly bodies.  On the ceilings of some of the Theban catacombs, we not only find the constellations depicted, each with its personified image, but astronomical tables giving the aspect of the heavens fortnight by fortnight throughout the months of the Egyptian year, so that the Soul had but