[47] From scenes in the tomb of Mentûherkhepeshf at Thebes, dating from the beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, we have evidence that Egyptian funeral ceremonies occasionally included human sacrifice at the gate of the tomb, the object of such sacrifice being doubtless that of sending servants to the dead. But the practice would seem to have been very exceptional, at any rate after Egypt had entered upon her long period of greatness. See MASPERO, _Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique du Caire_, V., p. 452; cf. WIEDEMANN, in _Le Muséon_, XIII., p. 457 _et seq._; see also GRIFFITH, _The Tomb of Paheri_, pp. 20, 21, in the Eleventh Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. [48] Chapter vi. of _The Book of the Dead_ consists of this formula, which there reads: “O Ûshabti there! Should I be called and appointed to do any of the labours that are done in the Netherworld by a person according to his abilities, lo! all obstacles have been beaten down for thee; be thou counted for me at every moment, for planting the fields, for watering the soil, for conveying the sands of East and West, Here am I, whithersoever thou callest me!”—_Renouf’s Translation_. [49] The frontispiece represents one of 399 ÛSHABTIÛ made for a priest named Horût’a, who lived during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. These ÛSHABTIÛ were found at Hawara by Petrie: see _Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara_, pp. 9, 19. [50] Professor Petrie, speaking of his discovery that it was the Egyptian custom to place masonic deposits of miniature model tools, etc., underneath the foundations of temples, and giving an account of the foundation deposits which he found beneath the pyramid temple of Ûsertesen II., at Illahûn, says: “The reason for burying such objects is yet unexplained; but it seems not unlikely that they were intended for the use of the KAS of the builders, like the models placed in tombs for the KAS of the deceased. Whether each building had a KA, which needed ghostly repair by the builders’ KAS, is also to be considered” (_Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara_, p. 22). We know that each building had its guardian spirit in the form of a serpent (cf. the representation of one dating from the time of Amenophis III, in Ghizeh, No. 217, published by MARIETTE, _Mon. Div._, pl. 63 b). [51] _The Book of the Dead_, chaps. lxxvi.-lxxxviii. [52] “The Egyptians were also the first to broach the opinion that the soul of man is immortal, and that when the body dies it enters into an animal which is born at the same moment, thence passing on (from one animal into another) until it has circled through all creatures of the earth, the water, and the air, after which it enters again into a new-born human frame. The whole period of the transmigration is (they say) three thousand years. There are Greek writers, some of an earlier, some of a later date, who have borrowed this doctrine from the Egyptians, and put it forward as their own.”—HERODOTUS, II., 123. See WIEDEMANN, _Herodots Zweites Buch_, p. 457 _et seq._