The general appearance of the recess is that of a somewhat narrow doorway. As a rule it was empty, but occasionally it contained a portrait statue of the dead standing with one foot forward as though about to cross the gloomy threshold of his tomb, descend the few steps before him, advance into his reception room or chapel, and pass out into the sunlight (fig. 126). As a matter of fact, the stela symbolised the door leading to the private apartments of the dead, a door closed and sealed to the living. It was inscribed on door-posts and lintels, and its inscription was no mere epitaph for the information of future generations; all the details which it gave as to the name, rank, functions, and family of the deceased were intended to secure the continuity of his individuality and civil status in the life beyond death. A further and essential object of its inscriptions was to provide him with food and drink by means of prayers or magic formulae constraining one of the gods of the dead--Osiris or Anubis--to act as intermediary between him and his survivors and to set apart for his use some portion of the provisions offered for his sake in sacrifice to one or other of these deities. By this agency the _Kas_ or Doubles of these provisions were supposed to be sent on into the next world to gladden and satisfy the human _Ka_ indicated to the divine intermediary. Offerings of real provisions were not indispensable to this end; any chance visitor in times to come who should simply repeat the formula of the stela aloud would thereby secure the immediate enjoyment of all the good things enumerated to the unknown dead whom he evoked. [Illustration: Fig. 127.--Wall scene of funerary offerings, from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 128.--Wall-painting, funeral voyage; mastaba of Urkhuû, Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 129.--Wall-scene from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.]