The funeral offerings for the deceased ancestors certainly filled a large place in observances; the drink offerings poured out upon the altar in the {82} chapel, and the cakes brought for the _ka_ to feed upon, were the main expression of family piety. How serious were such services is seen by their expansion into endowments for great tombs, extending to the great temples and priesthoods for the kings. The eldest son was the sacrificing priest for his progenitors, as in China and India at present; he was called the _an-mut-f_, or 'support of his mother,' and is figured as leading the worship in the adoration of deceased kings. But all the sons took part in the sacrifices, and trapped the birds (_Medum_, x, xiii), or slaughtered the ox for the _ka_ of their father. Such family sacrifices were the occasions of social feasts and family reunions; of later times the remains of the feasts were found strewing the cemetery at Hawara in the tomb chapels; and to this day both Copts and Mohammedans hold family feasts and spend the night at the tombs of their ancestors. All offerings were considered to be presented only by the king, as the great high-priest of all the land. Every formula of offering began 'May the king give an offering'; and the figure of the king making the offering, while the offerer stands behind him, is actually shown as late as the eighteenth dynasty. {83} The primitive belief in the tree-goddess, the Hathor who dwelt in the thick sycomore tree, and showered sycomore figs abundantly on her devotees, was a popular worship. It was by no means bound up with the tomb service, as in one case a red recess in a dwelling room had a panel picture at the top of it showing the tree goddess giving blessings to her worshipper (_Ramesseum_, xx). The latter instance gives the meaning of a curious domestic feature in the well-to-do houses of the bureaucracy at Tell-el-Amarna. In the central hall of the house was a recess in the wall painted bright red. It varied from twenty-three to fifty-one inches wide, and was at least five or six feet high. Sometimes there is an inner recess in the middle twenty-five to thirty-three inches wide. From the religious scene over such a recess it seems that these were the foci for family worship. The abundance of little statuettes of gods of glazed pottery, and often of bronze, silver, and even of gold, show how common was the custom of wearing such devotional objects. Children especially wore figures of Bes, and less commonly Taurt, the protecting genii of childhood. Another feature of popular religion was the {84} harvest festival. The grain was heaped, the winnowing shovels and rakes stuck upright in it, and then holding up the boards (which were used to scrape up the grain) in each hand, adoration was paid to Rannut, the serpent-goddess of the harvest. The observance of lucky and unlucky days was prevalent. The fragment of a calendar shows each day marked good or evil, or triply good or evil.