The transition from the Spartan type to the Sepulchral Banquet type is still obscure, but a connecting link is furnished by a relief from Tegea (_Athenische Mittheilungen_, iv., pl. 7), in which the woman is enthroned, while the man reclines on a couch with a table before him. (Compare also the relief from Mytilene No. 727.) It seems probable that we have in these reliefs symbolic representations of offerings made by living relations or descendants for the pleasure and sustenance of the dead. Such offerings of food and drink made by the living at the tomb are common to all primitive peoples. The Egyptians, in particular, made regular offerings of actual food, and at the same time surrounded the mummy with sculptural representations of offerings, which, it was thought, served to satisfy the incorporeal _double_ of the dead person. The early notion that the deceased was within the tomb, and enjoyed the food and drink offered to him in a material manner, became less distinct in later times. The periodical offerings assumed a more ritualistic and symbolic character, and were celebrated by the Greeks under the name of [Greek: nekysia]. The older archaeologists thought for the most part that the Banquet reliefs were representations commemorative of life on earth, or descriptive of the pleasures enjoyed by the dead in Hades. Dumont (_Rev. Arch._, N.S. xx. p. 247) and Hollaender (_De Operibus Anaglyphis_), interpret them as referring to the periodical offerings made at the tomb. It will be seen that this view is not very different from that which has been adopted above, and which is the view of Gardner (_Journ. of Hellenic Studies_, v., p. 130), and Furtwaengler (_Coll. Sabouroff_, i., p. 28). The reliefs, however, have more force than mere pictorial groups, if we accept the Egyptian analogy, and allow that the sculpture represents, by substitution, the offerings of material food. The snake is naturally associated with the grave, from its rapid mysterious movements, and from living in caves and holes. Compare the story of the snakes that were seen by Polyeidos in the tomb of Glaukos. (Apollodor. 3, 3, 1; Roscher, _Lexicon_, p. 1687). The votive character of the Banquet reliefs is proved in some instances by inscriptions, (_Journ. of Hellen. Studies_, v., p. 116; Roscher, _Lexicon_, p. 2553). It is doubtful, however, whether the artist was always conscious of the meaning of his work, and in some instances, as in the tomb at Cadyanda in Lycia (No. 766), the banquet appears to be merely a scene from daily life, and as such it closely resembles some of the vase paintings. In No. 737 and other late examples, the relief, though of the type of the banquet, is commemorative rather than votive.