Our catalogue of comic sketches is brief; but the abundance of pen-drawings with which certain religious works were illustrated compensates for our poverty in secular subjects.

These works are _The Book of the Dead_ and _The Book of Knowing That which is in Hades_, which were reproduced by hundreds, according to standard copies preserved in the temples, or handed down through families whose hereditary profession it was to conduct the services for the dead.
When making these illustrations, the artist had no occasion to draw upon his imagination.

He had but to imitate the copy as skilfully as he could.
Of _The Book of Knowing That which is in Hades_ we have no examples earlier than the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, and these are poor enough in point of workmanship, the figures being little better than dot-and-line forms, badly proportioned and hastily scrawled.

The extant specimens of _The Book of the Dead_ are so numerous that a history of the art of miniature painting in ancient Egypt might be compiled from this source alone.

The earliest date from the Eighteenth Dynasty, the more recent being contemporary with the first Caesars.