Rhind, Alexander Henry: Thebes, its tombs and their tenants, ancient and present (London, 1862)

GO

THE NECROPOLIS.

genii of the Ainenti (Hades), who had each tutelar
functions in regard to these respective portions of the
bodily frame, and their influences upon it—besides
the dead

" Packed to humanity's significance,"

the tombs were the depositories of other and very
remarkable contents. Tablets inscribed with prayers
or invocations, numerous small symbolical effigies of
the deceased, and statuettes of certain of the deities,
were the chief accompaniments of a specifically reli-
gious character. And just as the wall paintings have
preserved such numerous phases of life and manners,
so the tombs of one kind or other have yielded cor-
responding tangible relics in nearly as great variety.
Vases of all kinds, baskets, stools, chairs, a chariot, a
boat, musical instruments, bows and arrows, ink-horns,
workmen's tools, personal ornaments, children's toys,
fish-hooks, fruit, corn, bread, even a roasted duck,
and the many other articles in our museums, have
come from those rich treasuries. Unfortunately, as we
shall have again to remark, adequate data are wanting
for the accurate or even approximate apportionment
of those and other such objects according to their
original collocation in the tombs. And so, thus much
of the internal arrangements of these, either in their
individual character, or in their classification with
reference as well to their plan as to their relative
dates and locality, can be but partially and indistinctly