If the shaft were carried to its accustomed depth, there was sometimes the risk of breaking into tombs excavated at a lower level.

This danger was met either by driving a long passage into the rock, and then sinking the shaft at the farther end, or by substituting a slightly sloping or horizontal disposition of the parts for the old vertical arrangement of the mastaba model.

The passage in this case opens from the centre of the end wall, its average length being from 20 to 130 feet.

The sepulchral vault is always small and plain, as well as the passage.

Under the Theban dynasties, as under the Memphite kings, the Soul dispensed with decorations; but whenever the walls of the vault are decorated, the figures and inscriptions are found to relate chiefly to the life of the Soul, and very slightly to the life of the Double.