As Wassef sat on the mastabaof the cafe sullen and angry, the village barber whispered in his ear that Mahommed Selim and Soada had been hunting jackals in the desert all afternoon.
The excavations of 1881 showed that Unas was entombed elsewhere, and the indications are in favour of attributing the mastaba to Ati.
It reminds one of a mastabawith a sort of huge attic on the top.
On the other hand, the mastaba of Papû is only 19 ft.
Soon the mastabaitself was given up, and the necropolis of the city was reduced to the meagre proportions of a small provincial cemetery.
Thus the chapel of the mastaba of Sabu is only 14 ft.
Section of mastaba showing shaft and vault, at Gizeh 134.
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.
Wall scene of funerary offerings, from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.
The relative proportion of mastaba and pyramid became modified during the succeeding centuries.
Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Rahotep at Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.
The lower part is a mastaba with a square or oblong rectangular base, the greatest length of the latter being sometimes forty or fifty feet.
Of the pyramidion, scarcely any traces remain; but the mastaba is intact.
The step form is the result of carrying upwards the mastaba form, at the same time that it was enlarged outwards.
Plan of chapel in mastaba of Shepsesptah, Fourth Dynasty.
In this case at least we know that we possess the true value of the tones brought together by the artist, for the mastaba in question is one of those which the desert sands have most completely preserved.
In the mastaba where they were found everything is frankly archaic, everything is as old as the oldest of the tombs at Sakkarah, and those date from before the fourth dynasty.
In the mastaba of Tjeser at Bêt Khallâf stone was used for the great portcullises which were intended to bar the way to possible plunderers through the passages of the tomb.
At the period of transition from the predynastic to the dynastic age we have the greatmastaba of Aha at Nakâda, and the simplest chamber-tombs at Abydos.
The interior of a mastaba may be divided into several 'chambers' (there are three in the tomb of Ti), but generally there is only one.
As the well begins at the platform and ends in the rock-carved mummy chamber, it follows that it passes vertically first through the mastaba, secondly through the rock upon which the mastaba is founded.
In themastaba the well is simply a vertical corridor of approach to the mummy chamber.
From these he concludes that the principles of the mastaba and the pyramid were sometimes combined under the ancient empire.
The interior of a mastaba is composed of three parts--the chamber, the serdab, and the well.
As there was never any staircase to a mastaba either within or without, it will be seen that the well must have been a very inaccessible part of the tomb.
At Sakkarah the outward faces of the mastabaare not smooth.
The principal face of the mastaba is turned to the east.
The roof of the mastaba is a plain surface without irregularity of any kind; but the soil above it is sprinkled with vases buried at a slight depth.
We may say the same of the well, which plays the same part in the private tombs of the New Empire as in the Mastaba and the Speos of the Ancient and Middle Empires.
In the case of the mastaba all survived or perished together, but, in the pyramids, some are in a marvellous state of preservation, while others have disappeared and left hardly a trace behind.
The mastaba deserved therefore to be very carefully studied.
To arrive at the opening of the well, we must mount to the platform, or roof, of the mastaba (Fig.
In the mastaba the double had everything within reach of his hand.
The precise number cannot be given, for when the walls of the mastaba are entirely denuded, and only the well is left, one cannot be sure that the grave was ever of the mastaba form.
There is more variety of pose in the painted bas-reliefs with which the walls of the mastaba chapels are covered.
The man's real name, if he was the owner of the mastaba from whose serdab he was taken, was Ra-em-ka.
These tombs have no longer the simple mastaba form, but are either built up of sun-dried brick in the form of a block capped by a pyramid or are excavated in the rock.
