262 .-- Mask of Twenty-first Dynasty coffin of Rameses II.] [Illustration: Fig.

263 .-- Mummy-case of Queen Ahmesnefertari.] Upon this surface, the seventeenth chapter of _The Book of the Dead _was generally written in red and black inks, and in fine cursive hieroglyphs.
The body of the chest is made with three horizontal planks for the bottom, and eight vertical planks, placed two and two, for the four sides.

The outside is sometimes decorated with long strips of various colours ending in interlaced lotus-leaves, such as are seen on stone sarcophagi.

More frequently, it is ornamented on the left side with two wide-open eyes and two monumental doors, and on the right with three doors exactly like those seen in contemporary catacombs.

The sarcophagus is in truth the house of the deceased; and, being his house, its four walls were bound to contain an epitome of the prayers and _tableaux_ which covered the walls of his tomb.
The necessary formulae and pictured scenes were, therefore, reproduced inside, nearly in the same order in which they appear in the mastabas.