But for all that, we must not take the manuscript spread over Aî’s knees and that he is attentively reading for an account-book, or a document relating to his business. The portion of the scroll that he holds in his right hand, placed flat on his knees, is divided into vertical columns, which, cut by horizontal lines, presents a sort of chequered surface, the squares of which are not all of the same size. Each of the larger ones contains the name of an object, and each of the smaller a number. It is the list of the gifts composing the banquet offered to the dead person on the day of burial and during the funeral ceremonies. In the tombs both of the Ancient and the New Empire it is highly developed, and comprises the most varied materials: clear or coloured waters, beers of different kinds, wines of four vintages, seven or nine of the choice pieces of the victim, cakes of all sorts, essences, cosmetics, stuffs. On the scroll of our scribe where the space was restricted the list is shortened, and we only find the actual necessities: water, beer, some meat, a little perfume. It is to that of the tombs what the usual dinner of a middle-class family is to the ceremonial banquet of a noble; nevertheless, our scribe reads it with evident satisfaction: it is the menu of his meals for eternity, and, however scanty others may deem it, he probably considers it more pleasurable than that of his terrestrial dinners. We have here the natural development of the ideas that the Egyptians had of the other world. From the moment that the _double_ was to feed materially, they sought to assure it the food of which it had need. The formulas of the stelæ which mention bread, wine, meat, deciphered by the first comer, secured the provisioning of the _double_; all that had been desired for him in reciting it would be assured him in the other world by virtue of the magic words. For lack of a passer-by to accomplish this pious duty, it occurred to them to place statues in the tomb which seemed to repeat for ever a written list held on their knees; this simulation of a perpetual reading was more than sufficient to nourish for ever the simulacrum of a man. Here, it is the defunct himself who renders himself this good office; elsewhere it is a friend, a scribe, a favourite servant.