NUMEROUS utterances in the Pyramid Texts use the verb ic or its causative sic in connection with the ascension of the deceased king to heaven. Once it offers plays on words such as: "Thou ascendest (ic) to her in thy name of mastaba(ic)" (? 616). The meaning of the latter word with the peculiar determinative for a mastaba has been rendered by Sethe as "the ascending."' The obvious relation of the sign of the mastaba to the basic meaning of the verb ic has been pointed out by Gilbert,2 Rowe,3 and by Mercer.4 The sign shows the elevation of a mastaba superstructure, with battered walls, rising sometimes from a low platform. The wall is occasionally shown as blank (? 160), but more often it is divided into two halves by a central vertical line and with an upper horizontal band. Usually in each of the two lower halves a vertical or slanting line is indicated which could presumably represent schematically a false-door. The facade thus shown with its characteristic features could probably be identified as the eastern one of the mastaba. In one case (? 1016) only the left half of the sign shows an element to be perhaps understood as the southern false-door. Quite seldom is the occurrence of a door (or false-door) in the central axis (? 1516, 333). A very rare type of the hieroglyph (? 1341, 1361) shows a series of slanting elements below one or two horizontal bands and could most probably represent a recessed panel facade. Some rare hieroglyphs show a stepped superstructure with one or more steps, crowned with an edicule (? 452, 456, 462, 641) (reminiscent of the inner section of a corbeled portal) (? 1583). They seem to represent a stepped mastaba of the type known in the archaic period,' perhaps with a naos or edicule having slanting sides erected on the terrace, such as is occasionally represented in Egyptian drawings on the top of later mastabas.6 In one case the edicule is definitely quadrangular (? 462). In another a door (or false-door?) is shown in the central axis of the edicule (? 613). One hieroglyph has a high edicule upon an irregular base (? 645), suggesting a side-view, with sharply slanting rear. In all cases the signs seem to be interchangeable, whether they determine ic, "to ascend," Sic, "to cause to ascend," or h3t, is, "tomb." All the types represented can be recognized in the actual remains of the superstructures of the mastabas. The earliest could be the stepped brick superstructure (First Dynasty), which evolved into a stone graded mastaba (Fourth Dynasty). The recessed paneled mastaba (First Dynasty) and the later type with one or 1 K. Sethe, Dodekaschoinos das Zwalfmeilenland an der Grenze von Aegypten und Nubien, p. 81, n. 2, "das aufsteigende," aus "aufsteigen." 2 P. Gilbert, "Le cr~ateur de la pyramide fun6raire," Milanges de Philologie Orientale (Universit5 de Liige, 1932), p. 94.