To an Ancient Egyptian, life on earth was a prelude to an eternal existence in the hereafter. It duplicated the best moments spent in his mortal career. He spent all of eternity in his tomb. Therefor it had to be no mere marker or even a mausoleum. It needed to be a fully equipped house and, for the nobility, one that complimented the station in life. In the early days the fashionable tomb-house was the mastaba. It was flat topped, slope sided, and a rectangle.