The Egyptians did not trust only to the piety of their descendants to preserve them from a final death by inanition in their neglected tombs. At the end of a few generations that piety might grow cold and relax its care; besides, a family might become extinct. All those who could afford it provided against such contingencies as these by giving their tombs what we now call a perpetual foundation. They devoted to the purpose the revenues of some part of their property, which was also charged with the maintenance of the priest or priests who had to perform the ceremonial rites which we have described.[135] We find that, even under the Ptolemies, special ministers were attached to the sepulchral chapel of Cheops, the builder of the great pyramid.[136] It may seem difficult to believe that a "foundation" of the ancient empire should have survived so many changes of _régime_, but the honours paid to the early kings had become one of the national institutions of Egypt. Each restoring sovereign made it a point of duty to give renewed life to the worship of those remote princes who represented the first glories of the national history. [135] See the paper by M. MASPERO upon the great inscription at Siout, which has preserved for us a contract between Prince Hapi-Toufi and the priests of Ap-Môtennou, by which offerings should be regularly made to the prince's statue, which was deposited in a temple at Siout. (_Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, vol. vii. pp. 1-32.) [136] It was the same in the case of a still older king, Seneferu, the founder of the fourth dynasty. (DE ROUGÉ, _Recherches sur les Monuments que l'on peut attribuer aux six premières Dynasties de Manéthon_, p. 41.) [Illustration: FIG. 92.--Table for offerings. Louvre.] [Illustration: FIG. 93.--Another form of the table for offerings. Boulak.] Besides which there were priests attached to each necropolis, who, for certain fees, officiated at each tomb in turn. They were identified by Mariette upon some of the bas-reliefs at Sakkarah. Their services were retained much in the same way as masses are bought in our days.[137] [137] _Tombes de l'Ancien Empire_, p. 87.