As time went on, their importance dwindled, and their duties were limited to merely answering for their master when called by Thoth to the _corvee_, and acting as his substitutes when he was summoned by the gods to work in the Fields of Aalu.

Thenceforth they were called "Respondents" (_Ushabtiu_), and were represented with agricultural implements in their hands.

No longer clothed as the man was clothed when living, they were made in the semblance of a mummified corpse, with only the face and hands unbandaged.

The so-called "canopic vases," with lids fashioned like heads of hawks, cynocephali, jackals, and men, were reserved from the time of the Eleventh Dynasty for the viscera, which were extracted from the body by the embalmers.

As for the mummy, it continued, as time went on, to be more and more enwrapped in _cartonnage_, and more liberally provided with papyri and amulets; each amulet forming an essential part of its magic armour, and serving to protect its limbs and soul from destruction.
Theoretically, every Egyptian was entitled to an eternal dwelling constructed after the plan which I have here described with its successive modifications; but the poorer folk were fain to do without those things which were the necessities of the wealthier dead.