Mastaba.

I learned a new word: Mastaba. I was reading about the artist Christo, who has a project in Abu Dhabi, a permanent sculpture called "The Mastaba." It's something he's worked on, he says, for 40 years, "a massive sculpture that would comprise some 410,000 barrels."

"Mastaba" reminds me of a familiar English word, but I couldn't imagine something playfully sexual coming from Christo and getting built in Abu Dhabi. And, indeed...

A mastaba... is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inward sloping sides.... These edifices marked the burial sites of many eminent Egyptians during Egypt's Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom.... The word 'mastaba' comes from the Arabic word for a bench of mud, and when seen from a distance a mastaba does resemble a bench....

The mastaba housed a statue of the deceased that was hidden within the masonry for its protection. High up the walls of the serdab [cellar] were small openings that would allow the ba [soul] to leave and return to the body (represented by the statue); Ancient Egyptians believed the ba had to return to its body or it would die. These openings "were not meant for viewing the statue but rather for allowing the fragrance of burning incense, and possibly the spells spoken in rituals, to reach the statue."