The manner of sealing doors was very simple. In the case of single doors a wooden peg with projecting head was fixed in the jamb and another in the door (see fig. 11). When the door was closed the two pegs would be near to one another, so that a piece of string could be easily tied round them. This string having been securely fastened by a knot, the knot was then covered with clay, and the clay impressed by seal, thus making it impossible to open the door without destroying the seal or removing the pegs.
Folding doors were secured by a sliding bolt, but such bolts of course gave no security against a thief, so they also were sealed. They were shaped as in fig. 12, with a groove running across the centre; a piece of string was stretched across this groove, and then, after pellets of clay had been put on the two ends, it was sealed down as shown in the figure.
An interesting reference to this last method of sealing doors occurs in the well known inscription of Piankhy preserved in the Cairo Museum. This Ethiopian king, after his victorious journey through Egypt, goes to Heliopolis to present offerings of flowers, etc., to Ra, the famous god of that town. Proceeding to the shrine of the deity, Piankhy relates that “he stood alone,” that he “broke the seals” and “slid back the door bolt,” opened “the double doors” and saw his father Ra in the holy shrine. After performing certain ceremonies therein, he goes on to tell us that the doors were again shut, “clay was applied” to them, which was then sealed by the king’s own hand. Herodotus also, it may be remembered, refers to the Egyptian custom of sealing up doors, in the story of Rhampsinitus and the clever thief, who succeeded in pilfering the royal treasury by means of a loose stone in the wall of it. When the king happened to open the chamber, says the historian, he was astonished at seeing the vessels deficient in treasure, but he was unable to accuse anyone, as the seals were unbroken and the chamber well secured.
The sealings to tomb doors, the Egyptian’s “eternal habitation,” being required to be permanent, were much more elaborate.[13] After the mourners had retired, and the door had been closed, clay was smeared round the juncture of it with the lintel, jambs and threshold, and then stamped all over by the seal of the priest in charge.