Here usually there sinks a wide-mouthed shaft, on one of the declivities of the hills, not very high over the level of the valley, descending in an oblique angle. As soon as the overhanging rock has reached a perpendicular height of twelve to fifteen feet, the sharply-cut door-posts at the first entrance appear at once, provided with one or two great doors for closing. There too, the painted sculptures usually begin, forming a strange contrast to the sudden visitor between the craggy rocks, and the wild stones, by their sharp lines, shining surfaces, and fresh living colours. Long corridors of imposing height and width lead one still farther into the rock mountains. In single divisions, formed by the narrowing of the passage, and by new doors, the paintings continue on the walls and ceiling. The king appears adoring several gods, and addressing to them his prayers and his excuses for his earthly career. The peaceful employed of the beatified spirits are portrayed on one wall, and the torments of the wicked on the other; on the ceiling, the goddess is depicted lying along, as well as the hours of the day and night with the influences which they exercise on mankind, and the astrological meanings, all accompanied with explanatory inscriptions. At length we arrive in a great vaulted pillared saloon, the walls of which generally show the representations on a golden yellow ground, from which it has received the name of the Golden Saloon. This was intended for the royal sarcophagus, which stood in the middle from six to ten feet in height. But often when the king, after the tomb was completed, felt himself yet unweakened in his powers, and expected another series of years, the middle passage of this saloon was hewn in a steeper manner, as the beginning of a new one; new corridors and chambers were produced; sometimes the direction of the excavation was altered, until the king put a second period to the work, and the series was closed with a second hall, generally more spacious and magnificent than the first; to this were added, if time permitted, smaller spaces at both sides, destined for particular offerings to the dead, until the last hour sounded, and the royal corpse, after its seventy days of embalment, was laid in the sarcophagus. This was then so cunningly closed, that the granite colossus had always to be broken in pieces by the later violators of the graves, as the cover could not be lifted off.