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The chapter explained what theushebti-figures were intended
for. Before the dead man, justified though he had been by faith
in Osiris and his own good deeds, could be admitted to the full
enjoyment of the fields of paradise, it was necessary that he
should show that he was worthy of them by the performance
of some work. He was therefore called upon to cultivate that
portion of them which had been allotted to him, to till the ground
and water it from the heavenly Nile. Had he been a peasant [053]
while on earth, the task would have been an easy one; had
he, on the contrary, belonged to the wealthier classes, or been
unaccustomed to agricultural labour, it would have been hard
and irksome. Thanks to the doctrine of the Ka, however, means
were found for lightening the obligation. The relatives of the
dead buried with him a number ofushebti-figures, each of which
represented a fellah with mattock and basket, and their Kas, it
was believed, would, with the help of the sacred words of the
Ritual, assist him in his work. Sometimes, to make assurance
doubly sure, the images were broken; thus, as it were, putting an
end to their earthly existence, and setting their Kas free.
When once the tomb was closed and the mummy hidden away
in the recesses, it was necessary to find a way by which the Ka
could enter the abode of the dead, and so eat and drink the food
that had been deposited there. For it must be remembered that
the Ka from its very nature was subject to the same limitations as
the person whom it represented. If there was no door it could not
enter. Where it differed from the living person was in its existing
in a world in which what are shams and pictures to us were so
many concrete realities. Consequently all that was needed in
order to allow the Ka free entrance into the tomb was to paint a
false door on one of its walls; the Ka could then pass in and out
through the Ka of the door, and so rejoin its mummy or its statue
when so it wished.
This false door, in front of which the offerings to the dead were
originally laid, must go back to a primitive period in Egyptian