123 .-- Plan of chapel in mastaba of Thenti II., Fourth Dynasty, Sakkarah.] [Illustration: Fig.

124 .-- Plan of chapel in mastaba of the _Red Scribe_, Fourth Dynasty, Sakkarah.] The chapel was the reception room of the Double.

It was there that the relations, friends, and priests celebrated the funerary sacrifices on the days prescribed by law; that is to say, "at the feasts of the commencement of the seasons; at the feast of Thoth on the first day of the year; at the feast of Uaga; at the great feast of Sothis; on the day of the procession of the god Min; at the feast of shew-bread; at the feasts of the months and the half months, and the days of the week." Offerings were placed in the principal room, at the foot of the west wall, at the exact spot leading to the entrance of the "eternal home" of the dead.

Unlike the _Kiblah_ of the mosques, or Mussulman oratories, this point is not always oriented towards the same quarter of the compass, though often found to the west.

In the earliest times it was indicated by a real door, low and narrow, framed and decorated like the door of an ordinary house, but not pierced through.