* Thus the axis of the tomb of Pirsenu is 17 deg. east of the magnetic north.  In some cases the divergence is only 1 deg. or 2 deg., more often it is 6 deg., 7 deg., 8 deg., or 9 deg., as can be easily ascertained by consulting the work of Mariette.

The doors face east, sometimes north or south, but never west.  One of these is but the semblance of a door, a high narrow niche, contrived so as to face east, and decorated with grooves framing a carefully walled-up entrance; this was for the use of the dead, and it was believed that the ghost entered or left it at will.  The door for the use of the living, sometimes preceded by a portico, was almost always characterized by great simplicity.  Over it is a cylindrical tympanum, or a smooth flagstone, bearing sometimes merely the name of the dead person, sometimes his titles and descent, sometimes a prayer for his welfare, and an enumeration of the days during which he was entitled to receive the worship due to ancestors.  They invoked on his behalf, and almost always precisely in the same words, the “Great God,” the Osiris of Mendes, or else Anubis, dwelling in the Divine Palace, that burial might be granted to him in Amentit, the land of the West, the very great and very good, to him the vassal of the Great God; that he might walk in the ways in which it is good to walk, he the vassal of the Great God; that he might have offerings of bread, cakes, and drink, at the New Year’s Feast, at the feast of Thot, on the first day of the year, on the feast of Uagait, at the great fire festival, at the procession of the god Minu, at the feast of offerings, at the monthly and half-monthly festivals, and every day.

[Illustration:  008.jpg TETINIONKHU, SITTING BEFORE THE FUNERAL REPAST]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original monument which is preserved in the Liverpool Museum; cf.  Gatty, Catalogue of the Mayer Collection; I. Egyptian Antiquities, No. 294, p. 45.

The chapel is usually small, and is almost lost in the great extent of the building.* It generally consists merely of an oblong chamber, approached by a rather short passage.**

     * Thus the chapel of the mastaba of Sabu is only 14 ft. 4
     in. long, by about 3 ft. 3 in. deep, and that of the tomb of
     Phtahshopsisu, 10 ft. 4 in. by 3 ft. 7 in.

** The mastaba of Tinti has four chambers, as has also that of Assi-onkhu; but these are exceptions, as may be ascertained by consulting the work of Mariette.  Most of those which contain several rooms are ancient one-roomed mastabas, which have been subsequently altered or enlarged; this is the case with the mastabas of Shopsi and of Ankhaftuka.  A few, however, were constructed from the outset with all their apartments—­that of Raonkhumai, with six chambers and several niches; that of Khabiuphtah, with three chambers, niches, and doorway ornamented with two pillars; that of Ti, with two chambers, a court surrounded with pillars, a doorway, and long inscribed passages; and that of Phtahhotpu, with seven chambers, besides niches.

[Illustration:  009.jpg THE FACADE AND THE STELE OF THE TOMB OF PHTAHSHOPSISU AT SAQQARA]