"The use of the serdab is revealed by the objects which have been found in it; it was to hold one or more statues of the deceased. The Egyptians believed these statues to be the most certain guarantees, always with the exception of the mummy itself, of a future life for the dead. Hidden from sight in their dark prison, they were protected from all violence, while they were separated only by a few stones from the chamber where the friends and relations met together, and the conduit by which the intervening wall was often pierced, allowed the smell of fruit and incense and the smoke of burnt fat to come to their nostrils.[170] [170] In a Theban tomb described by M. MASPERO (_Étude sur quelques Peintures funéraires_) the tenant, Harmhabi, is made to speak thus: "I have come, I have received my bread; joining the embalmed offerings to my members, I have breathed the scent of the perfumes and incense." It is also possible that this conduit may have been intended to permit of the free circulation of the _double_, to allow it to pass from its supporting statues to the chapel in which it is honoured. This curious idea, that the spirit of the dead can pass through a very small hole, but that it cannot dispense with an opening altogether, is found among many nations. The Iroquois contrived an opening of very small diameter in their tombs, through which the soul of the dead could pass and repass. See HERBERT SPENCER, _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i. p. 192. [Illustration: FIG. 116.--Plan of a mastaba with four Serdabs. (Lepsius, i., pl. 24.)] [Illustration: FIG. 117.--Longitudinal section of the same mastaba.]