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These tables were
slightly hollowed out or curved inward, to give room for the knees of
any one sitting on the stone ledge that had been cut for a bench along
the side of the cave at a distance of about two feet from them. Each of
them, also, was so arranged that it ended right under a shaft pierced
in the rock for the admission of light and air. On examining them
carefully, however, I saw that there was a difference between them that
had at first escaped my attention, viz. that one of the tables, that
to the left as we entered the cave, had evidently been used, not to
eat upon, but for the purposes of embalming. That this was beyond all
question the case was clear from five shallow depressions in the stone
of the table, all shaped like a human form, with a separate place
for the head to lie in, and a little bridge to support the neck, each
depression being of a different size, so as to fit bodies varying in
stature from a full-grown man's to a small child's, and with little
holes bored at intervals to carry off fluid.


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