Transcriber's Note: 1) Spelling of Sneferu / Snefru left as in the original. 2) [. A] = dot above a

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 EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT, 1897. 

 EL KAB. 

 BY J. E. QUIBELL. 

 IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE WORK OF SOMERS CLARKE AND J. J. TYLOR. 

 LONDON: BERNARD QUARITCH, 15, PICCADILLY, W. 1898. 

 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 

CONTENTS. 

 INTRODUCTION. 

 SECT. PAGE 1. Course of work 1 2. Chance of inscribed tombs 2 3. Description of site 2

 CHAPTER I. THE EARLIEST TOMBS. 

 4. Mastabas and stairway tombs 3 5. Ka-mena mastaba 3 6. A mastaba 4 7. Compound mastaba 4 8. Nefer-shem-em 5 9. Early black cylinder 5 10. Smaller mastabas 5 11. Stairway tomb with inscribed cylinder 7 12. Open graves 8 13. _Majūr_ and cist burials 9

 CHAPTER II. DATE OF THE "NEW RACE" REMAINS. 

 14. Variety of names 11 15. First dating erroneous 11 16. Evidence from El Kab 12 17. From other sites 12 18. Doubtful points 13

 CHAPTER III. MIDDLE KINGDOM CEMETERY. 

 19. Early XIIth dynasty tombs and the wall 13 20. Tombs in detail 14 21. Later XIIth dynasty tombs 14 22. Beads 15

 CHAPTER IV. NEW EMPIRE MONUMENTS. 

 23. Few XVIIIth dynasty remains 15 24. Temple of Amenhotep III. 16 25. Foundation deposits 16 26. Temple near the east gate 17 27. The date of the wall 17 28. Bronzes 17 29. Pigeon-house 17

 CHAPTER V. DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES. 

 30. Plate I. 17 31. Plates II-VI. Photographs 17 32. " VII-IX. Mastabas and tombs 19 33. Plate X. Alabaster vessels 19 34. Plates XI-XII. Libyan and early pottery 19 35. " XIII-XVII. XIIth dynasty pottery 19 36. " XVIII-XIX. Marks on pottery 20 37. Plate XX. Pottery, scarabs, and cylinders 20 38. " XXI. Foundation deposits 20 39. Plates XXII-XXVI. Plans 21 40. Plate XXVII. Contents of tombs 21

LIST OF PLATES. 

 I. Tomb plans. II. Old Empire stone vases, etc. (photographs). III. Sandstone statue of Nefer-shem-em, and group of objects from the tomb of Ka-mena (photographs). IV. Sandstone table of offerings and two stelæ (photographs). V. XIIth dynasty statuette and ushabti, a late bronze, etc. (photographs). VI. Diorite, alabaster and pottery vessels of Old Empire (photographs). VII. Sketches of mastabas. VIII. Sketch of a mastaba, and box of ivory and glaze veneer. IX. Views of a stairway tomb. X. Alabaster vessels, XIIth and IVth dynasties. XI. Libyan and Old Kingdom pottery. XII. Old Kingdom pottery. XIII. Pottery, early XIIth dynasty. XIV. XIIth dynasty water-jars. XV. " " pottery. XVI. " " " XVII. " " " XVIII. Marks on Old Kingdom pottery. XIX. " Middle Kingdom pots. XX. Pottery, scarabs and inscribed cylinders. XXI. Foundation deposits. XXII. Plan of cemetery E. Of town. XXIII. " mastabas N. Of town. XXIV. " tombs in S. E. Angle of the enclosure. XXV. Plan of gateway in wall. XXVI. " temple of Thothmes III. XXVII. Catalogue of small Libyan tombs. 

INTRODUCTION. 

1. It was on Mr. Somers Clarke's proposition that El Kab was selectedfor last winter's work of the Research Account. Mr. Clarke has forsome years been interested in this site, and has published some ofthe XVIIIth dynasty tombs there. He wished to see the smaller tombsexcavated, and the great area inside the town examined, so, with hiscolleague, Mr. J. J. Tylor, he offered a considerable subscription tothe funds, on condition that El Kab should be the selected site. ToMr. Jesse Howarth, equally with these gentlemen, we are indebted forthat support without which the excavations could not have been carriedout. 

We arrived at El Kab on the 1st of December, and within four days hadcleared out several of the uninscribed tombs in the famous hill, andhad made them into a most comfortable house. Nothing in Egypt makes sopleasant a dwelling as a rock-tomb. In a house in which window anddoor are one, and three sides and the roof are of solid rock, therecan be no draughts, and the range of temperature night and day is verysmall. We had a room each, another for a dining-room, and in two moreI packed away my forty workmen. These were nearly all men known inprevious years at Kuft and Naqada, for the natives of El Kab are fewin number and of inferior physical strength, so that their labour attwo piastres a day was dearer than that of the picked Kuftis at four. All the conditions of work were very pleasant, much better than Ihave known in Egypt before. No crowd of loiterers and dealers' spieshaunted the work as at Kuft, no robbery by workmen threatened us asat Thebes. Surveying poles were left out for weeks together; at mostvillages they would have been stolen the first night for firewood. 

There was some delay in getting the necessary permission for digging;after a fortnight's waiting we received it, and began to work uponthe XIIth dynasty cemetery. Halfway through March the digging wasgradually brought to an end, and map-making and packing occupied thetime till we left in the beginning of April. Fifty-four boxes ofpottery and other objects were brought to England, were exhibitedduring the month of July at University College, and were thendispersed to various museums, Oxford, Philadelphia, Chicago andManchester, receiving the largest shares. I have to acknowledge muchhelp received both in Egypt and England. To Mr. Clarke, besides thefinancial support mentioned already, we owe thanks for help in thework of excavation, in plan-making, drawing, etc. , and for hisuntiring hospitality. To Miss A. A. Pirie, who was with us for thelater two-thirds of the season, we are indebted for several coloureddrawings of tombs, etc. , now at University College, and to her, asalso to my sister, for constant aid in the varied daily occupations ofthe digger, tasks in which their experience makes them most valuablehelpers, and which they cheerfully added to the labours of deserthousekeeping. In England, several friends have helped in the work ofunpacking, exhibiting, drawing plates, etc. , notably Miss Griffith, Miss Murray, Mr. Herbert Thompson and Dr. Walker. Few outside thelittle ring of diggers and their friends know how much drudgery inEgypt and in England is taken off our hands by friendly helpers, working without a thought of reward. 

2. The site of El Kab is a large one. The area inside the town wallsalone would have required to clear it five times the money we had atour disposal; and besides that, there was the hill of XVIIIth dynastytombs, the cemeteries outside the walls, and the temples far up on thedesert. It was necessary to make careful choice of such spots as wouldrepay the labour expended on them. The most obvious place to searchwould be the sandstone hill in which we lived, where the fineinscribed tombs of Paheri and Aahmes are well known. But is there muchchance of finding inscribed tombs anywhere in Egypt except at Thebes?We know that the tomb was left open for the visits of relatives, andopen it must always have remained, unless it got drifted up with sand, or unless the quarrying of another tomb on a higher level sent down amass of chips which hid it. At the capital, tombs were often lost forlong periods in this way; in less crowded cemeteries the accidentwould seem to be less likely to happen. Many traces in the existingtombs at El Kab show that earlier tombs were quarried away in order tomake room for them. This would seem to minimise the chances of findinganything valuable of early date; and if by chance some inscribed tombstill remains hidden in the talus of chips in the lower part of thehill, the business of making a thorough search there would be so longand expensive that it will probably remain undiscovered. 

3. The greatest monument at El Kab is the town wall, the huge mass ofwhich must arrest the attention of every passer-by on the river. Itencloses a great square of about 580 yards in the side; the walls are40 feet thick, and in most places still reach a height of 20 feet. Thediagonal of the square runs, roughly, N. And S. , and the S. W. Wall isparallel to the river. The S. W. Corner has disappeared; indeed theriver now runs over the point where it must have stood. There isevidence that the Nile has moved eastward at this point, but not toany great extent, within the last 2000 years, for some remains of alanding-stage, believed to be Roman, can still be seen a little southof the town. About a quarter of the area inside the walls was cut offfrom the rest by a curved double wall, and only inside this smallerarea are there many traces of buildings. Here, in the early part ofthe century, was a large mound, but now the sebakhin have carried itall away, and we look over a most desolate space, at one part red withthe broken pottery of all periods, thrown out from the sebakh-digger'ssieve, at another white with the salt that everywhere permeates thesoil. A few great brick walls remain, and the foundations of thetemple, but no part of the superstructure. Outside this town, butinside the great square of the walls, the character of the ground isquite different. There are no great masses of pottery, hardly anybrick walls; in the lower parts little parallel ridges in the soilshow that cultivation has been carried on there within the last fewyears; for the rest, the ground is covered with pebbles, much likethe untouched desert, and here and there are fragments of pottery, evidently of early date. These were most numerous on two or threeslight rises which, as we afterwards found, had contained groups oftombs. Thus, on the day we arrived, was presented the first puzzle ofEl Kab. The greater part of the enclosure had never been inhabited, atleast by people living in houses and using pottery. What, then, couldhave been the purpose of the huge walls? The north wall (strictly, thenorth-west, but called north for convenience) could be crossed bywalking up the great sand-slope, which reaches to its top on bothsides. This is driven up by the prevalent north wind. A similar, butmuch smaller, heap has drifted against the north side of the southwall. From the top of the north wall one has a good view of the wholeneighbourhood. The town lies at the mouth of a wide valley, flanked bybroken ranges of sandstone hills. An hour's walk up this valley is tobe seen the little square block of Amenhotep III's temple, the greatisolated rock of the graffiti, and, rather nearer, the small temple ofRameses. The low hill to the left, half a mile away, is the hill oftombs. The row of black dots sloping downwards to the east are thedoorways of the tombs; they follow the bed of soundest rock. Furtherto the north is a rock looking, in the distance, like a huge mushroom. This is a hill of which there remains only the upper part, resting ongreat pillars; the flanks of the hill and all the inside of it exceptthese pillars have been quarried away, the stone being used probablyfor the temples of El Kab. The strip of cultivated land is very narrowat this part, often less than 500 yards wide. 

Immediately to the east of the walls the ground has been disturbed, being covered with small and equal rises and depressions; scraps ofXIIth dynasty pottery scattered over its surface showed that here wasthe cemetery of the Middle Kingdom. 

_Note. _--I stopped for five hours at Kafr-es-Zaiat on the railwayjourney from Alexandria to Cairo to examine a site, which may be theSerapeum of the Saite nome. On the map, in the Description de l'Egypt, some ruins are marked as the village of El Naharieh, north ofKafr-es-Zaiat. I found, on talking with the people, that ruins hadexisted there thirty years ago, but that now all the ground they hadcovered had been brought into cultivation. Under the mats in themosques some blocks of granite of old Egyptian work may be seen, andI noticed the cartouche of Necho twice. The sheikh of the villagehad, too, a fine lintel, used as a gate-post. This he kindly had movedfor me, and on it I saw the name of the Serapeum of the Saite nome, _Hat-biti_, again with the cartouche of Necho. (_Cf. _ de Rougé, Géographie de la Basse Égypte, p. 22. )

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CHAPTER I. 

THE EARLIEST TOMBS. 

4. The lower parts of the ground inside the enclosure had been verythoroughly looted, chiefly by the natives of El Kab, when cultivating. We found many small graves about 6 feet long, 2 feet wide, and waistdeep, but containing no bones, and with so little pottery in them thatit took some time to determine their period. But in the two low moundsto the north, and the larger one in the south, graves of several kindssoon appeared. Of these one set were clearly later than the rest. Their enclosure walls, within which several burials were found, wereat right angles to the great wall of the town, and cut through theother graves (mastabas) which, though parallel to one another, wereskew to the town walls. These earlier tombs were of several types: (1)mastabas with square shafts; (2) mastabas with sloping "stairways, "both of crude brick; (3) burials in the kind of large earthenware potthat our workmen call a _majūr_; and (4) burials of that nowwell-known type which has been called New Race, Libyan, Neolithic, etc. , and which is distinguished by the contracted position of thebody with the head to the south, and by a very definite class ofpottery, paint slabs, beads, etc. The mastabas were found both withinand outside of the town walls, one group (PL. XXIII) lying quite closeto them. On three diorite bowls found in these graves (one inside thewalls, the others outside) the name of Sneferu appeared. As this isthe only king's name occurring in any of these tombs, it seemsprobable that most of them may belong to the reign of Sneferu, or tothe period immediately following. And the town walls, being builtthrough the Old Kingdom cemetery, are, of course, the later in date. 

About thirteen "stairway" tombs and thirty-seven mastabas wereexamined. The precise number cannot be given, for when the walls ofthe mastaba are entirely denuded, and only the well is left, onecannot be sure that the grave was ever of the mastaba form. Of smallergraves which yielded any evidence, there were about fifty-three; butmany more, which, from their position, orientation, and size, could beassigned to the early period, were quite empty, or contained only afew potsherds. 

5. The most important mastaba was that of Ka-mena (PL. XXIII). It isone of a group which we found under the great mound of drifted sand onthe north side of the wall. PL. VII gives two views of this group oftombs during the process of excavation. The low walls are denuded nearthe end of the sand-slope to a single brick's height; in the centrethey are a metre high, and they sink again towards the end under thegreat wall. They are built with recessed panels, and were originallyplastered and painted white. Round the whole tomb runs a boundarywall. The two small closed chambers at the end of the last passage(corresponding to those which, in the tomb of Nefer-shem-em, containedhis two statues) were empty, but a few fragments of the legs of asmall sandstone statue were found near. In the E. Wall itself thereare two niches; in and near them were found many small pieces ofworked limestone, some inscribed. They are copied in PL. XVIII, 49-53and 55. The face in 49 retained a touch of green paint on the cheek, an important piece of evidence for the dating of the Naqada tombs, theoccupants of which also used this method of adorning themselves. Thepieces, 53 and 54, seem to be parts of a stela; 50 and 55 are from thebases of limestone statues. 

The inscriptions give us Ka-mena's name, and show him as a king'sacquaintance and a priest. 

The chambers inside the mastaba, left blank in the plan, were foundfilled with brick earth; this was cleared out, but nothing save ascrap of IVth dynasty pottery was found. The earth was doubtlessthrown in in this way to economise bricks; the cross walls wouldserve only to keep this loose earth from falling down the well in thecentre. The well was about 15 feet deep, filled with thick, damp clay, the bottom being, even in January, very near the water-level. Thechamber was to the south, closed by a rough-hewn slab of sandstonethree inches thick. It should be noted that the sandstone in theneighbourhood breaks naturally into very flat plates, so that it iseasy to pick out slabs which, with very little dressing, will servefor building; such pieces were found in many of the early tombs. This slab being removed, the chamber was found to be full of a verytenacious clay, much of which had to be cut away with a knife, for inso tough a substance a light blow with an adze has no effect, and aheavy one may damage some valuable object before it can be seen. Thewhole chamber was lined with flat sandstone blocks, but the thin roofslabs had given way under pressure of the earth above. The style ofbuilding was irregular (_v. _ PL. I), the blocks being fitted, but notsquared. The body had lain on the west side, with its head north; notrace of a coffin remained, and the bones were a mere white paste, only to be distinguished by scraping sections with a knife throughmud and bone. Under the whole body was a bed of white sand. Nearthe entrance were six vases (XI, 12), of a shape and fabricindistinguishable from a late Neolithic form common at Naqada, andopposite the middle of the body was a group of important objects. These were: a model granary in rough red pottery (PL. VI), each littlestorehouse having an opening above, closed by a stopper; anothersimilar granary in fragments, three vertical alabaster jars, analabaster circular table, and the group of bowls and model tools shownin PL. III. These last consist of--

(1. ) A bowl and ewer, probably of copper, not of bronze. 

(2. ) A bowl of porphyry, a flat bowl of a beautiful light-coloured andtranslucent diorite, and a flat dish made of a darker variety of thesame stone. This last is inscribed with the Ka name of Snefru, NebMaat, the chisel-like sign of the _maat_ being written on the convexside of the sickle, and the door-frame of the name surmounted by ahawk. 

(3. ) A set of model tools, axe, knife, adzes and chisels, shown againin outline on PL. XVIII, 56-65. These have been analysed by Dr. Gladstone, who writes as follows:--

 "The largest fragment gave--

 Per cent. Copper 98·4 Arsenic 0·3 Iron 0·2 Bismuth trace Lead trace Antimony trace? Oxygen as cuprous oxide trace

It is, of course, essentially copper, the minute quantities of theother constituents being due, in all probability, to impurities in theore. The total absence of tin is the most notable feature. "

6. The small mastaba W. Of Ka-mena's is of simpler construction. The brickwork may have been recessed, though this could not beascertained, as its walls were only two bricks high, and the panellingin the other mastabas does not reach so near the ground. There is noenclosing wall, but there is a passage on the east side, with lowcross walls which I do not understand. The chamber at the bottom ofthe well is to the south; it was not closed by a stone. Near themouth, to the east, was a small coffin of red pottery; its size showedit to be that of a child buried in a contracted position. Between thecoffin and the side of the chamber was a diorite bowl; south of thiswere two vertical jars and a circular table, all of alabaster. On thewest side of the chamber lay the body, on its left side, and with thehead north; the arms and legs were sharply bent, the heels beingbrought close to the hips. 

7. To the west of this is the compound mastaba marked C in the plan. The southern half was built later than the northern, the panelling ofwhich can be seen inside the first well beyond the cross wall. Thespaces marked 1, 3 and 6 are only chambers filled with clay; 2, 4 and5 are all tomb wells. 

The well (4) was exceptional in that its chamber was to the west andnot to the south. It was 5·3 m. Deep, and scattered through the earthin it were coarse pots of the types in PL. XII (23, 30, 31, 33, 34, 40). Inside the chamber were two vertical alabaster jars, a circulartable, a diorite bowl, fragments of malachite, a small river shellcontaining white paint, and one of the pots (XI, 12) like those inKa-mena's tomb. 

At the bottom of the next well (5) stood one of the largehemispherical pots (_majūrs_) which were used as coffins (XX, 5). It was 60 cm. In diameter, but was empty and inverted. Against themouth of the chamber was a stone slab two metres high, one side of itmuch broken away. The chamber was, as in all these tombs, filled withthick mud, and scattered through this mud, or on the floor, lay thefollowing objects: a diorite bowl of the ordinary shape, containing asmall vase of alabaster inverted over a mass of green paint (malachite), a smaller bowl also of diorite, an alabaster table upside down, and twomore alabaster vessels. 

Below these lay what once had been a very curious box. The pattern ofthe lid is shown in PL. VIII, 2. It is composed of small flat stripsof ivory, 1 mm. Thick, and of pieces of glaze, blue and black; thesehad apparently been glued on to a background of wood, but this hadentirely decayed, and the thin film of decoration was left in the massof heavy clay. After clearing it sufficiently to learn its nature andsize, we drove a piece of tinplate under it, and so lifted out thewhole lump of earth in which it was contained. Inside the house wecould at leisure scrape away the soil from one side, and pour meltedbeeswax in its place, then turn the whole over and repeat the processon the other side. In this way a large piece was brought to Englandembedded in wax. This wax was afterwards removed, and replaced on theinside by plaster of Paris. The size of the box was about 12 incheslong by 8 inches broad, and 5 inches high. It had been much crushed, and the sides could not be saved. The contents were a small porphyrybowl (X, 44), a shell, and some green paint. 

8. The mastabas C, Ca, and D were contained in the same boundary wall. C appears to be the earliest, then Ca, then D. The inner half of thepassage between C and D is lined with stone; at the end, bricked up ina little chamber, were found the two statues of Nefer-shem-em; to him, therefore, belonged the tomb D. The statue to the west was insandstone (PL. III), a standing figure, 1/3 life-size; the head wasmissing, only a few fragments of it being found below the statue. Thesurface of the stone had been covered with a fine layer of plaster, reddened with haematite, of which some traces remained; the skirt waspainted white. 

The other statue of limestone represents Nefer-shem-em seated. Thehead is well preserved, and the whole statue is a good example of OldKingdom work, though not of the most finished style, and much damagedby salt. It does not show the "Schminkstriche. " The inscriptionsincised on the base of the standing figure, and on the right side ofthe chair of the seated one, are the same:--

 _Suten rekh se hez neter hon Nefer-shem-em. _

(Number in Ghizeh Catalogue, 650. )

The mastaba D of Nefer-shem-em is of the ordinary type, with twoniches on the east, two chambers filled with brick earth, and acentral well. This well was filled with bodies, not buried withcare, but thrown down in every contorted attitude. The position oftwenty-three skulls and bodies was noted, and then, as no plan orarrangement appeared, the rest were left to be taken out by the men. Ascarab of Amen-ankh-as, found in one of the bodies on the upper level, appears to give the late XVIIIth dynasty as the date for this mass ofburials. 

9. The next mastaba (E) is of a curious form; the S. Niche is overone of the wells instead of being in the outer wall. Both wells werecleared until we were stopped by water. From one came the fragments ofa pottery sarcophagus of the small type. 

The small mastaba (301) nearer the town wall was of more interest. Inits well were found fragments of the rough early pottery (PL. XII), ofthe short type of earthenware coffin, and of a _majūr_ (XX, 5), also a piece of a diorite bowl, on which the name Sneferu had beenvery roughly scratched, and a small (3/4-inch) black stone cylinder(XX, 32). This is of a type already fairly well known from boughtspecimens (there are twenty-one in the Edwards Coll. ), and suspectedto be early, but not hitherto found by a European. The engraving showsa figure seated before a table and wearing a huge wig. 

10. The next mastaba (No, 288) was inside the town. Just to the southof the tomb passage, as if thrown out from it, lay a great many potsof coarse pottery of the shapes shown in the top of PL. XII. Thesepots were also found in the passages between mastabas, and fragmentsof them in very great quantities were scattered over the tombs, especially over those of the "stairway" type. This suggests that thecoarse pottery was used, not in the interment, but for the offeringsbrought by relatives to the tombs. They were placed, probably, opposite the niches, and when they became inconveniently numerous, were thrown away over the tomb wall. Several hundreds of these potswere found, heaped together, behind two mastabas to the north of thewall (PL. VII, C, D). 

The tomb had been robbed. Fragments of one of the large, circular, bowl coffins (XX, 5) were scattered through the earth all down theshaft, and the great slab which had closed the door was thrown overat the bottom of the well. The chamber was empty, but under the flatstone were found fragments of a slate dish, of an alabaster table, andof four diorite bowls. Of one of these, the largest I have seen (PL. II, 1), more than two-thirds of the pieces remained; it was inscribed, in neat, deep characters, _suten biti Sneferu_, the name of the kingbeing written without the cartouche. In this tomb was also one of thecoarse bars of pottery that I have found both in Old Kingdom and inNeolithic tombs, the use of which is by no means clear. They were, when complete, about 2 feet 6 inches long, and 4 inches thick; theyare flat on one side, rounded on the other. The sides of one Neolithictomb at Ballas were lined with bars of this kind. In another, the bodywas sheltered by a large inverted dish resting upon several of them;frequently fragments of two or three were found in a tomb. Perhapsthey were used as supports for the coffin. 

In tomb No. 312, which was probably a mastaba, though the walls werenot observed, the well was but 2 metres deep. The chamber was at thewest, and was just large enough to contain the pottery coffin and afew pots. The coffin was of the short type (3 feet long); the body layon its left side, crouched up, head to the N. , and face E. One bonefrom the foot lay outside the coffin at the foot end, where also laya small bowl of diorite, part of another in limestone, bracelets inshell and horn, an ivory hairpin, and a shell containing green paint. Through the earth in the tomb-shaft were scattered a large number ofcoarse pots (PL. XII, two of 41, 45, 43, a hundred and four of 22, more than a hundred of 31). 

In tomb No. 318, the burial chamber lay to the west of the well, 2 m. Above the bottom of it, 3·7 m. From the top. The bones were scatteredand broken, but the chamber was so small that the burial must havebeen a contracted one. There remained a diorite bowl (11 inchesdiameter), a vertical alabaster jar, a smaller one containing greenpaint, and part of a bowl in a good red ware, of the same open shapeas the bronze bowl of Ka-mena's tomb. 

No. 315 contained a fragment of sculpture (XVIII, 55). No. 319 had theregular group of alabaster table and small and large diorite bowl, with two of the long egg-shaped pots (XI, 12), a vase with a spout(PL. XII, 55), and one of the open red pottery bowls, as in No. 318, and Ka-mena (PL. XII, 51). 

Next comes a group of tombs with square wells, and chambers closed bya large block of stone, which tombs are probably mastabas, althoughthe panelled brickwork was not found. 

No. 42. A large square well, 200 m. To the N. Of the town wall. Scattered in the earth were fragments of all the common coarsevarieties of IVth dynasty pottery, and also of the bowl-like coffins(XX, 5). The half of an ivory cylinder (XX, 33) and the small blackcylinder (XX, 31), with an inscription which is, apparently, notEgyptian, were found amongst them; there was also a small slate dish, and the egg-shaped pot (XII, 49). 

No. 88, inside the town, was a well 2 metres deep. The chamber wasclosed by a large stone (1·00 m. × ·65 m. ), but an entrance had beeneffected behind it. There remained in the chamber four stone bowls ofthe shapes so often found together (X, 22, 39, 44, 48), and in theshaft were part of a _majūr_, and twenty-five coarse pots (nineteenof XII, 23, two of 37, four of 31). 

No. 101. A well, 3 metres deep, with chamber to the south, contained, with the regular coarse pottery, the less common shape XII, 26, andalso some fragments of the later Neolithic large vases (Naqada, XL, 40or 46). Necks of these same vases were in No. 150 with the coarsepottery, and also one of the yellow clay dolls, about 15 cm. Long, representing a woman with very long legs, and a great square-endedwig. These dolls are well known, and were supposed to be of the MiddleKingdom. There was no sign in this tomb of a secondary burial, so itmay be that the dolls are even of the Old Kingdom. 

No. 185. At 2·10 metres below the surface were the pieces of a smallpottery cist, a _majūr_ (complete), under which lay the body, inthe contracted position, the head to the south, a stone bowl, and anivory comb, together with a few beads, felspar discs, and shell-shapedbeads of serpentine, apparently of Neolithic style. Forty cm. Lowerwere some cylindrical beads in green glaze, and shells with the stainsof green paint. In the earth above were scattered examples of theregular series of coarse pots (XII, 23, 31, 35, 45). 

No. 187, a well 3 metres deep, contained only an inverted potterycist, inside which was a body lying upon the left side, with the headto the north. 

No. 191, a well 2·50 metres deep, was peculiar in that it contained nochamber; the body was protected from the earth above by a double roofof sandstone slabs, supported on other slabs at the sides. The bodywas sharply bent up, the knees being nearly opposite the mouth; it layon the left side with the head south. At the head stood an alabastervase (X, 31) of a late Neolithic shape. This tomb, but for itsexceptional depth, might be classed among the Neolithic interments. 

In No. 192 the body was in an abnormal position, for while the armslay at full length, and the thighs in a line with the body, the kneeswere so sharply bent that heels and hips were in contact. The head wasto the north, and the face east. 

No. 204 was another square well with a chamber below, which had beenclosed by a thin brick wall; it contained a square, flat, slatepalette, parts of a slate dish, and three pots of a Neolithic shape(XI, 12). 

No. 228 was a square well near a group of stairway tombs. In it weretwo burials, the first in a pottery cist placed in one corner of thewell at 1·5 metres from the surface. The body was contracted, the headto the north; the only object placed with the body was a shell nearthe hips. Below this cist lay another body in a wooden box paintedwhite. This also was in the sharply contracted Neolithic position, hands and knees both before the face; the head lay to the north, andthe body was on its left side. Lower still in the well were pots ofthe coarse Old Kingdom types. Both these bodies, presumably, aresecondary burials. 

No. 231 contained three pots of Old Kingdom types (XII, 23, 54, 31), with fragments of a large _majūr_ (XX, 5), and one sherd of a thinware, black inside, and decorated outside with rows of pricked marks. This cannot be distinguished from certain fragments obtained in theNeolithic cemetery at Ballas. 

No. 280, a well north of the wall, sunk below water-level, but in thefilling were found the regular group of coarse pots (XII, 31, 36, 35, 33). 

In 197 the coarse pottery occurred with chips of malachite, and in 233with a vertical alabaster vase and fragments of a large vase identicalwith a large late Neolithic shape. 

11. We next turn to the other large class of tombs, those entered bystairways. These may all have been mastabas. The characteristicmassive brick walls remain in several cases, in one, at least, retaining the recessed panel work and niches. But it may be that thesestairway tombs are rather older than those mastabas which have squarewells, and it seems best not to group them together. The appearance ofthese tombs may be seen in Miss Murray's black and white reproductionof two sketches by Miss Pirie (PL. IX). 

The first view shows the stairway, as seen from below, lookingnorthward; in the other view one is supposed to be looking southwardat the vertical end of the shaft, the tomb entrance and the stonedoor. 

All these tombs were robbed, excepting, possibly, one. This (St. 2)was the smallest tomb of the kind that I have seen. The stair wasreduced to a couple of roughly cut steps; the total depth was only 1m. , and though a large stone slab had been placed as a door to theburial chamber, a robber had only to pierce 20 cm. Of soil to get intothe chamber through the roof. The chamber, which was about a metresquare, was filled with a thick damp clay. The bones had decayed somuch that only a few parts could be identified but distinctivefragments of the skull, the hip ends of the two femurs, a tibia, aradius and ulna, enabled one to see that the body had lain on theleft side with the head to the north. Before the face was an ivory cup(shape X, 44). Below the body was a little red dust with spots ofwhite in it, probably the remains of a wooden coffin painted white. 

In and below the white paste, which was all that was left of the bonesof the hand, were two nuggets of gold (one 18 dwts. = 28 grammes) anda handful of barrel-shaped carnelian beads mixed with very small beadsof gold. By scraping away the earth very gently, one could see thatthe gold beads had been strung together to form bands 5 or 6 mm. Broad, alternating with bands of carnelian. A gold bar, 2 cm. Long, pierced with five holes, had clearly served to hold the strings onwhich the beads were threaded. There was also a bracelet of a singlethick gold wire. The total weight of gold was about 4 oz. (125grammes). In the N. W. Corner of the tomb, behind the head, were fivevessels of ivory, two very coarse vertical jars (14 and 19 cm. ), twobowls (23 and 26 cm. Diameter), one with a spout (X, 26), and a bowlof the spreading shape of Ka-mena's bronze (XII, 51); there was also asmall double vase of limestone (X, 15). A little steatite plaque withthe inscription Neb. Ra was stated by the workmen to have come fromthis tomb, and there is no reason to doubt them; but I did notactually see it in place. The name Neb. Ra is one of the three Ka nameson the shoulder of the famous archaic statue No. I at Ghizeh, and thename on the plaque may perhaps be the same, though it is not writtenin the square Ka frame. 

In the side of the tomb were two small balls of limestone and one ofcarnelian, in shape and size like playing marbles, and some fragmentsof malachite. By the door were some chips of diorite bowls. Themarbles were clearly part of a set for a game (_cf. _ Naqada, PL. VII), and the fact that the set was incomplete, and that the stone bowlswere broken, makes it probable, in spite of the presence of the goldnuggets, that the tomb had been partially plundered. The early robbersmay easily have passed over the gold, for the moist and tough clayhides small objects only too well; it was only the weight of two smalllumps of clay that betrayed to me the presence of the nuggets inside. 

The quantity of gold remaining in so small a tomb shows how rich thelarge interments may have been, and how strong was the temptation torob them. 

In Stairway 1 the lines of the surrounding mass of brickwork weretraced, but the walls were not high enough to show the recessedpanels, which probably once existed. 

In Stairway 6, a large tomb, coarse shapes of pottery (XII, 23, 35)were found, and also vertical alabaster jars, fragments of analabaster table, and of bowls, hairpins of ivory, and an oblong slatepalette with two stone rubbers. This was of one of the later shapes ofNaqada. There was also a large pot (of the shape XII, 49, but larger), similar to the later pottery of the New Race. 

Stairway 5 must be counted in this group of tombs, though it differedfrom the common type in three respects. It was much larger, thebrickwork being 41 metres long by 20 wide; instead of an open stairwayit had a small shaft opening into a long inclined plane which led downto the burial chamber; the chamber, too, was very large (7 m. Square). The recessed brickwork remained on the west side, and the passagewhich led to the niche on the east side can still be traced. Theclearing of this tomb formed a tedious task for six men during threeweeks, and nothing important was found. A pot (X, 29), found insidethe great chamber, suggested that it had been entered during theXVIIIth dynasty, and three alabaster vases (28 cm. High) were mostprobably canopic jars from some late burial. This tomb is a prominentobject to anyone looking north from the El Kab wall, and has theappearance of a natural mound. 

Another stairway tomb was remarkable for the great number of coarselimestone and alabaster vertical jars which were piled at the bottomof the stair. There were 150 of these, but nothing else in the tomb, except a few pieces from a bowl of brown incised ware (XX, 1), somewhat like the rare incised pottery found at Naqada. 

Staircase 8 contained a stand of coarse pottery and a small coarsesaucer (XII, 31, 44), the rough handmade vase (XII, 23), fragments oflarge water-jars of better ware, and two alabaster bowls, one of thesharp-edged type (XI, 33), the other of the common shape, drawn in atthe mouth (XI, 44); there were also two mud jar-seals of flatsaucer-like shape. 

In Stairway 9 the sides of the shaft had been plastered with mud. Thestone door of the burial chamber was still standing, the robbershaving apparently found it easier to force their way through thecomparatively soft earth above the great slab. We were frequently ableto trace their mode of entrance, and found that they sank their shaftsat the deep end of the stairway, never clearing the long flight ofsteps. This would seem to show that the robberies took place whilethis method of burial was remembered. This tomb contained fragments ofone of the large hemispherical pots used as coffins (_majūrs_), andpieces of a large jar of polished red ware, the lines of polish onwhich run lengthways; this ware again cannot be distinguished fromthe Libyan. There was also a vertical jar of veined marble, thehorizontally-pierced handle of a typical Libyan stone vase, analabaster bowl and a vase (X, 43), with a couple of coarse potterybowls of IVth dynasty type (XII, 37). 

Stairway 10 contained only the coarse pottery, but the common jars(XII, 23) bore a series of simple marks made before firing (XVIII, 21-4, and a triangle). 

Stairway 12 had been robbed, though the sandstone door had not beenmoved. The body had been laid in a wooden box (80 cm. Long), whichnearly filled the chamber. The wood had disappeared, but the thinlayers of paint still kept their place. The body lay on the left side, contracted, the head to the north. A small diorite bowl stood near thehead of the coffin, and a common alabaster vase in the earth above it. Round the bones of the arm were carnelian beads of short barrel shape. 

No. 226 was exceptional in the position of the entrance to the tombchamber. On descending the stairway, one found oneself at the base ofa large well, in the east side of which, and not visible from thestairway, stood the great door. In the filling was found a good flintknife, of the usual early type, with small handle, but much inferiorto the finer Neolithic work. 

The contents of this series of tombs have been given thus in detail, in order to show that the same grouping of objects occurs over andover again, and that they can therefore be with confidence attributedto the original burials, though if only a single tomb had beenexamined there would be no proof of the contemporaneousness of anyobject in it. It will be observed that the contents of the stairwaytombs are very closely similar to those of the mastabas with squarewells, but that objects characteristic of Neolithic tombs--greenpaint, double vases, marbles, etc. --are rather more numerous in thestairway tombs. This makes it seem likely that the stairway tombs hereat El Kab are earlier in date than the mastabas with square wells. 

12. Next we may describe the small graves, generally about 3-4 feetdeep, in which there is no chamber for burial, but the body is laid inthe shaft or open grave. These were found chiefly inside the fort ofEl Kab, though a few were outside the walls. Some were distinctly ofNeolithic type, but of that later variety in which the fine black andred pottery is not found. Of the earlier type, only one small group oftwenty graves was discovered; these were well outside the town, on thewest side of the railway, and so thoroughly cleared out that only halfa dozen chips of pottery remained to show their real nature. But ofthe later kind many examples were found, and still more numerous werethe empty graves which, by their size and position, seemed to belongto the same class. 

This type is characterised by the contracted position of the body, thevertical jars with cordage pattern, the square slate palettes, theflat alabaster dishes, and four shapes of alabaster vases (X, 22, 44, 48, 31), two of which often occur also in the mastabas. The firstgroup obtained were inside an oblong brick building, which showed redin the distance, the colour being due to the great number of brokenpots of the Old Kingdom (XII, 20, 23) scattered over it. The earthwithin its walls was found to consist largely of these pots, of whichthere was an unbroken layer, two feet thick. Below this we came uponthe Neolithic tombs. The walls were of the small bricks which we soonlearnt to associate with the work of the Old Kingdom in El Kab. It isnot probable that the walls had any relation to the tombs, for theywere not quite parallel to one another, and there were more tombsoutside these walls. But it is important to observe that a thick layerof the coarse pottery of the Old Kingdom here overlies Neolithictombs. It is just possible that the pottery may have been thrown bycultivators upon this mound, but the probabilities against this seemedto me very strong. In one of these tombs (L, 2) the body was foundcomplete, lying on the left side, with the head to the south. At thehead end were one wavy-handled pot of a late type (XI, 3), twovertical jars (as XI, 5), with cordage pattern, a square slatepalette, and above these a pot (XI, 9), with decoration in wavy redlines; also an alabaster cup (X, 38), containing six finger-bones. Atthe other end were a bowl, and two vases of well-known forms. 

The middles of the graves were generally empty, and bones were rarelyfound; the stone bowls, which formed the bulk of the finds, were atthe north and south ends. It does not seem worth while to transferfrom the notebooks the full description of each of these small tombs, for they have been so thoroughly robbed and turned over that theposition of the different objects in the tomb has no particularmeaning, but it may be well to give a short catalogue of the objectsfound (_v. _ PL. XXVII). Each of the tombs is about 1·50 m. To 2·00 m. Long, ·90 m. Wide, and 1·50 deep. 

In one tomb (No. 237) the body was laid in a wooden box (length notseen, ·40 m. Broad, wood 3 cm. Thick), in a contracted position, withthe head to the south, but the bones were disturbed, and the potterylay at various levels, not all on the floor of the tomb. There weretraces of mat-work at the north end. 

No. 241 was lined with four stone slabs, and another that lay near hadserved for roof. In the filling was a head of some animal (? antelope)made of the coarse red pottery of the early period. 

No. 206 had a fragment of a square Neolithic palette, an alabasterbowl with a spout (X, 19), a taller bowl, also of alabaster (X, 30), and a lot of beads--felspar discs, long cylinders of copper (?) andsteatite. 

13. The only untouched small tomb (No. 166) lay to the north of thetown. The plan of this tomb is given in PL. I, 7, and the objects incollotype in PL. II, 2. The tomb was cut in the hard black mud, ofwhich the ground north of the wall is formed, to a depth of ·9 metre. The northern half was occupied by an inverted large hemispherical bowl(_majūr_ XX, 5); though inverted, it was quite full of thick blackmud, in which the bones of the deceased were embedded. The head lay tothe north and the face east, the body of course contracted. South ofthis a tall alabaster jar lay on its side, and at the end of the tomba squat alabaster jar, a smaller one of the same type, and two pots(XI, 7, 8) of a rather smooth pink ware, with red lines and dotspainted over it. The smaller pot is really a lid, and is pierced atthe top for suspension. Between the _majūr_ and the side of thetomb were some pieces of ivory (1 inch by 3/16 inch), probably theveneer from a box like that in PL. VIII, 2. From the mud in thedecorated pot the following small objects were picked out: two ivoryhairpins, three bracelets, a disc of ivory with a grooved rim, apolished brown pebble, a small alabaster cup (X, 44), two shells, bothwith green stains inside, with beads of ivory, green felspar, gold, carnelian, blue frit, and serpentine, and, most important of all, aninscribed cylinder of translucent steatite. The inscription given inPL. XX, 29, is perhaps a name compounded with that of a king, thelatter being in a cartouche. If this reads ka-ra, it may beconceivably En-ka-ra of the VIIIth dynasty (though I do not think thislikely), or, as Professor Sayce suggests, Manetho's [Greek: Chairês]of the IInd. The first column seems to give the Hor. Nub name of theking as Nefer, or Nefer-Ka. 

The beads are nearly all of known Neolithic types; one form isnoticeable, a blue frit cylinder with gold caps at the ends. It isconvenient to mention here the other cases of burial under the largehemispherical pots or _majūrs_. 

Two (No. 186) were found, each in a small hole west of Ka-mena'smastaba; the first lay mouth upwards and contained the much-decayedbones of a child; the second was inverted and contained no bones, buta bowl of a rather coarse red ware, two of the very coarse IV dynastysaucers and a common pot of the same period. Another _majūr_ lay atthe bottom of a well in one of the great groups of mastabas which havebeen already described. 

Another (No. 249) lay at the bottom of a long open grave (3·70 m. )with two burials in pottery cists. The arrangement of the bones in itcould not be made out. 

Another (in a well 1·5 m. Deep) contained a sharp-edged bowl (XII, 53), wheel-made, covered with a wash of haematite. This was above theskeleton, which lay on its right side, doubled up, the knees beforethe face, the head north; below the body were traces of wood; in thebowl was a short cow's (?) horn. 

Near to this was another small well (1·30 m. Deep), and at the bottomof it a small _majūr_, in which the position of the bones could bebut partly made out. The head was to the north, the body lay on itsback, with the thighs spread out wide, and one hand by the hips. 

Another of these burials was in a small hole covered by a flat stone. Two shells were under the left arm. _No head was found. _ The shoulderswere on the east, humeri pointed downwards, forearms prone; the legswere bent, the knees up and south of the backbone. The last threeburials were close to the large group of mastabas. 

A much disturbed group of _majūr_ burial (178) is important asgiving a dated object together with one of these _majūrs_, thecopper (?) cylinder of User-kaf (PL. XX, 30). These _majūrs_ wereprobably within the area of a mastaba, but so little of the brickworkremained that it was not possible to say whether the mastaba was madeover the graves containing the _majūrs_, or the graves cut throughthe brickwork of the mastaba. On the floor of the square well lay afragment of a flint bracelet, and some pieces of green felspar, alabaster, and malachite. In the filling were fragments of Old Kingdompottery, of a broken pottery cist, and of the rude pottery bars. Inthe small chamber to the south were three alabaster vessels of theusual shapes (X, 16 and 44), and a skeleton, contracted and lying onthe left side. This well was presumably that of the mastaba of whichthe few patches of brickwork near were the remains. Just to the southof it lay the irregular grave in which the cylinder was found. Closeto the surface lay two skeletons and a _majūr_, the pot was to thenorth; the two skeletons, both in the contracted position, and withheads to the north, faced one another. Below these was anotherskeleton, lying upon its right side, with head to the east; below it, and to the west, another, the skull of which lay crown downwards, theline of the body north and south. This was the only skull that couldbe got out unbroken; it was very weak, and in spite of very carefulpacking, was broken before it reached England. Below this were partsof two more skeletons, and there was another in the large _majūr_;further, leaning in the south-west corner at the bottom of the grave, was a sandstone slab, behind which was yet another contracted burial;the skeleton was on its left side, with the head to the north. Thecylinder was below the first pair of skeletons. The other objects inthe tomb were a IVth dynasty pot (35), an ivory comb and spatula, ashell and some green paint. This grave had evidently been to someextent disturbed, and it is just possible that the cylinder and theburials are not contemporaneous, but the simplest explanation is thatthey are, and that the grave was cut through the early mastaba. When Iwas clearing this tomb, Mr. (now Sir William) Richmond was sitting onthe edge watching me, and we were both struck with the singular shapeof the unbroken skull, the strong projection of the cheekbonesreminding us of the Mongol type. No great weight can be attached tothis observation, as measurements of the skull could not be taken, butI mention it as showing how important it may be that any unbrokenskeleton found in a _majūr_ should be preserved. The early dateof these burials can hardly be doubted, but it has not yet beendetermined whether they belonged to the same race as do the ordinaryNeolithic graves, the _majūr_ being a cheap substitute for thewooden roof of the earlier time, or whether they belonged to someother element in the population, as the presence with them of thetwo illegible black cylinders would suggest. 

The burials in pottery cists, not hitherto mentioned, may now betaken. These cists were found at Ballas both in "stairway" tombs andin open Neolithic graves. At El Kab they have been already mentionedas occurring in mastaba wells. The cists are short coffins, about 3feet in length, made of a coarse and porous red ware, and aregenerally without lids. 

In one instance (174) the cist was found between walls and beneath aroof of sandstone blocks. The skeleton, which was young, as theepiphyses were not united, lay on its left side, facing east, the headnorth. A small shell, with chips of malachite, was before the face. Inanother, the cist lay at the bottom of a square well, the body againon its left side, with the head to the north, the knees brought upbefore the face; the left elbow was by the side of the left handbefore the face, while the right arm lay over the head. There was alittle decayed linen cloth in the cist, and, near the hips, a shell. 

In tomb No. 249 a _majūr_ and two cists lay upon the sloping bottomof a long (3·70 m. ) well; the _majūr_ was at the southern end, which was lower by 60 cm. Than the northern. In both cists the bodylay as in the two last-mentioned graves; one contained a sharp-edgedshallow bowl of red ware. 

Another cist (316) lay at the bottom of a shallow well near the largegroup of mastabas (1·50 m. By 1·10 m. By 1·60 deep). The sides of thecist were broken down, and many of the bones were disturbed, but apart of the spinal column and the legs sufficed to show that the bodyhad lain with the head north, but on its right side. 

No. 312 has been already mentioned among the mastabas. The cist lay ina small chamber, the body on its left side, with head to the north. 

CHAPTER II. 

DATE OF THE "NEW RACE" REMAINS. 

14. The greatest interest of El Kab lay in the light that it shed onthe same civilisation which had been disclosed two years before at thecemeteries of Naqada and Ballas. In these we had examined 3000 gravesof a type till then unknown, and as different from the graves of thehistoric Egyptians as if they had come from China or Peru. The mostobvious characteristic of these burials was the position of the body, which always lay in a contracted attitude, with the head to the south, never at full length, as in all other Egyptian interments. All thefurniture of the graves--beads, slate palettes, green paint, ashes, flint knives and pottery--were of novel types, and without anyadmixture of the mirrors, ushabtis, scarabs, or any of the otherfurniture of ordinary tombs. Hieroglyphic inscriptions were alsoabsent. The results of the excavations were published in "Naqada andBallas, " and the main conclusions there set forth were that thesegraves were the interments of a foreign race, differing from theEgyptians of the dynastic periods in physical features and in habits;that they were probably a white race akin to the modern non-Semiticinhabitants of North Africa; and, further, that they invaded Egypt atthe close of the Old Kingdom, and were again expelled by the risingstrength of the Xth and XIth dynasties. 

[These people were at first called by Dr. Petrie "the New Race, " butthey have received other names. M. De Morgan, in his EthnographicPréhistorique, has attributed this class of monuments to the Neolithicperiod, and called the men of the contracted burials "les indigènes. "The name "Libyans" has also obtained some vogue; it emphasises theundoubted distinction of race between this people and the historicEgyptians, and may perhaps be used as a general name for the peopleof the contracted burials until a clearer distinction than is nowpossible be made between (_a_) the Neolithic period before the adventof the dynastic Egyptians; (_b_) the time between the Egyptian arrivaland the consolidation of the kingdom under Menes; and (_c_) the firstthree dynasties. ]

15. The conclusion that these people differed from the Egyptians hasnot been much disputed, but the above dating has been opposed, and theevidence from El Kab convinced me that we were wrong, and that M. DeMorgan was right in attributing the bulk of this civilisation to thepraedynastic period. Of this dating, the remarkable finds of M. Amélineau at Abydos, and those of M. De Morgan himself at Naqada, havegiven very strong proof; but the more fragmentary evidence of El Kab, which led me independently to the same conclusion, may retain still acertain interest. 

M. Amélineau's excavations at Abydos began at the end of 1896--thewinter after our Naqada campaign--and many of the objects he foundare already exhibited at Ghizeh, others are at Paris, and a few havefound their way to England. Among them are many pots and stone bowlsof undoubted late Neolithic type, with whole classes of objects whichdid not occur at Naqada, stelæ, inscribed scarabs of limestone, andclay seals stamped with the Ka names of kings. The long pots on whichthese inscribed clay seals still fit are of a type found once atBallas, and so prove some connection of the Ka names with thecontracted burials. 

This year Sethe's important paper (A. Z. XXXV, 1) identifying three ofAmélineau's names with known kings of the Ist and IInd dynasties, hasbrought a new precision into the whole question, but this, of course, was not known to us at El Kab. Yet Amélineau's association of theLibyan pottery with inscriptions of an archaic style, which would mostnaturally be dated long before the IVth dynasty, made our later datingof the pottery improbable, and necessitated a re-examination of theevidence. The crucial case at Ballas was the secondary burial of aLibyan found in one of a group of stairway mastabas. The mastabas werebelieved to be of the IVth dynasty, because the fragments of potteryand of alabaster bowls found in them were similar to IVth dynastyobjects from the cemetery of Medum. 

16. This dating of the alabaster was, as we now think, rather toolate, but the interment certainly proved that one Libyan died whena tomb of the early Old Kingdom had already been plundered, and layopen, affording an easy means of burial. But not only was thisintrusive burial found in one stairway tomb; green paint and stonevases with horizontally-pierced handles, were found in others of thesame group. These Libyan traces were also interpreted as the remainsof secondary interments, but when at El Kab, I saw the same Libyanremains in the stairway tombs there, it immediately became clear thatthe malachite, vases, etc. , more probably belonged to the originalinterments, not to secondary ones, that the stairway tombs (perhaps, also, the other mastabas) were but another form of Neolithic burial, and that the earlier Neolithic tombs were anterior to the Old Empire. As the digging went on, other scraps of evidence came to support thisview. The coarse pottery which lay in heaps over and near the mastabasof the IVth dynasty is identical with that found in some of the smallNeolithic graves. 

A vase of hard red ware found in Ka-mena's tomb, which was certainlyof Sneferu's time, was almost indistinguishable from a Libyan formcommon at Ballas. 

One of the incised bowls--a rare but distinctive species of Libyanpottery--was found in a stairway tomb at El Kab. 

The small late-Libyan graves lay between the mastabas of the time ofSneferu, not interfering with them, or dug through them, giving theimpression that all were approximately of the same date. 

In one tomb there was found, with undoubted Libyan pottery, a greensteatite cylinder of a type known in the Old Kingdom. 

In a walk taken one day over the cemetery of Kom el Ahmar, opposite toEl Kab, I observed again the same mixture of Old Kingdom and Libyanpottery near a group of mastabas. 

17. To this evidence must be added some considerations about the firstcemetery of Naqada and Ballas, which were felt by us from thebeginning as difficulties in the way of accepting the later dating tothe VII-X dynasty. 

The entire absence of distinctly Egyptian objects from so large aseries of tombs, and even from the villages of the same period, wasdifficult to explain on the supposition that the Egyptians werealready in the land. 

The Libyans, too, as lovers of fine pottery, would surely have learntthe use of the wheel from the Egyptians, if they had come in contactwith them at all; yet all the Libyan pottery (with the rarestexceptions) is handmade. 

The Libyans habitually placed green paint among the other toiletarticles buried near the head. The Egyptians of the early Old Empireare sometimes represented with green paint upon the face. It is morenatural to suppose that this was a fashion inherited from thepraedynastic times, than to suppose that so peculiar a mode ofornamentation was practised at two independent periods in the historyof the country. 

Lastly, there is the negative evidence from the mound of Nubt. HereDr. Petrie found on the surface walls of the XVIIIth dynasty, withinscriptions and dated pottery; below them walls of the XIIth dynasty, with pottery again, and lower still, walls and layers of pottery ofthe Old Kingdom. But between these last two, no scrap of the Libyanpottery occurred, though a Libyan town lay but a quarter of a mileaway. 

On an examination, then, of the whole evidence from our two cemeteriesof Naqada and El Kab, I came to the conclusion that our first datinghad been not early enough, that the latest type of tomb at Naqadawas contemporary with the mastabas of the Old Empire, and that theearliest type (characterised by dissevered skeletons, very fine flintknives, great quantities of ashes, and a small number of red and blackpots of good quality) must be attributed to a much earlier period. 

Since then much more information has come to light. M. De Morgan'ssecond volume of "Recherches sur les Origines de l'Égypte" contains asummary of the discoveries made by M. Amélineau at Abydos, togetherwith an account of the great royal tomb found by M. De Morgan himselfat Naqada. M. Amélineau's finds are recognised as being chiefly of thefirst three dynasties, and on an ivory plaque from the royal tomb ofNaqada, Dr. Borchardt has pointed out the name of Menes himself. 

The objects from this tomb are now exposed in the museum at Ghizeh, and it is interesting to observe that the pottery, the slate palettes, and the flint knives are distinctly of the _later_ type of Ballas. 

It has, then, become now fairly clear that the earliest knowninhabitants of Egypt were a tall, fair race akin to the modernKabyles. They buried their dead in a contracted position with the headto the south, and in the earliest times either mutilated the deadbefore burial, or kept the bodies for a long time before the finalburial. The relative dates of the different varieties of their tombscan be made out, and the graves with mutilated bodies found at Naqadaare much earlier than those at Abydos containing the names of I-IIdynasty kings. At some period which we cannot yet date, even on therough scale of Libyan pottery, another race or races entered thecountry, bringing with them writing, the practice of mummification, the art of building in brick with recessed panels, and perhaps, as M. De Morgan suggests, metals. Thus was formed the Egyptian people ofhistoric times. 

18. A point that has not been explained is the different position ofthe bodies in the open graves and in the stairway tombs. In theformer, the head lies south; in the stairways and in the graves ofMedum, it is to the north. 

The burials, too, under the large pots which we call _majūrs_, arenot understood, nor is their exact period known. As they were found inthe later cemeteries of Ballas, El Kab, and Kom el Ahmar, but not atNaqada, it seems likely that they belong to the later division of theLibyan period, viz. , after the Egyptian invasion, perhaps even afterthe time of Menes. But to which race, if to either, is not clear. 

CHAPTER III. 

MIDDLE KINGDOM CEMETERY. 

19. Inside the town walls, never outside, were found a few examples ofa distinct type of tomb, with underground brick arches, pottery akinto that of the usual XIIth dynasty, but not identical with it, andstone vases of distinctive shapes. The types of pottery are shown inPL. X, 1-28, the alabaster vases in X, 1-6. 

In PL. XXIV some walls in broken line are seen which cut through thewalls of three mastabas, which last are shown in dead black. The tombsin question lay parallel with these walls, some within the squarechambers, some also outside; and the walls are, roughly, parallel withthe great walls of the town. The method of construction seems to havebeen as follows: An oblong excavation, about 6 m. Long by 2 wide and 3m. Deep, was made in the gravel. About half the length of this wasneeded for the tomb; the other half formed a rough sloping staircasefor the workmen. The sides of the grave were built of brick walls, andthese were covered by an arch of brick about 1·50 m. High. In this thebody was laid at full length, on the left side, the head to the north;in front of the body was a great mass of pottery. The interest of thisset of tombs lies in the bearing they may have on the question of thedate of the wall, for if it be granted that these are probably of theearly XIIth dynasty (as the pottery suggests), then we have earlyXIIth dynasty tombs inside, and tombs of the reign of Amenemhat IIIoutside the walls. (There were, however, two tombs inside the walls inwhich the remains of the pottery were much like those in the tombsoutside. ) Now there is a stela from El Kab, to which Dr. Spiegelbergcalls my attention (published in Stobart, Egypt. Antiq. , PL. I), whichstates that Amenemhat III restored the walls at El Kab which UsertesenII had built. What walls these were the stela does not state, but theevidence from the pottery would support the idea that they were thegreat town walls. And if this be so, the common pottery of the MiddleKingdom can now be split into two sections, between which the reign ofUsertesen II will form the dividing line. 

20. _The tombs in detail. _

In No. 203 there were only two pots and a marble vase. Traces of theroofing arch were found. The skeleton as it lay measured 1·80 m. Long. 

No. 205 contained pottery of shapes XIII, 2, 12, 27, 24, 20. 

No. 216 contained four examples of XIII, 5, one each of 2, 19, 4, andabout fifty of the small saucer, 12a. 

No. 242 contained 26, 2, 3. 

No. 255 contained a great mass of pottery of nearly all the shapes (2, 5, 4, 12, 9, 17), much of which lay at a higher level than the twobodies; of these, one lay upon its back, the other in the regularposition. Before the face of the northern body was an alabaster vase(X, 4), a small shell and a fragment of bronze rod. Another alabasterjar (X, 3) stood by the hips of the southern skeleton. 

No. 264 was in better condition than most, and contained a greatnumber of pots, including more than fifty of the shape XIII, 22, andmany of XIII, 20. Nearly all were, however, broken, for, as in allthese tombs, the arch had fallen in. This tomb contained also a stringof beads, barrel beads of lapis lazuli, carnelian and gold foil, andsmall discs of gold. 

In No. 265 were found more than two hundred pots scattered in alldirections; a few were nested in a recess halfway down the side of thetomb. All the shapes XIII, 1-28, except 16 and 22, were found in thistomb. There was no skeleton. A hole had been pierced in the base ofevery pot after baking. 

One group of tombs of this period (_v. _ PL. XXIV) had apparently beenmade at one time. In three of them the skeletons remained with two orthree coarse pots laid before the face. Outside the enclosure wall ofanother of these groups of tombs was a heap of saucers (like XIII, 12), painted inside with a rough cross of white paint. These are, bythe fabric, probably of the same period as the tombs. 

21. In the great XIIth dynasty cemetery outside the town the graveswere of different construction, consisting of a long and narrow shaftfrom which, at both the north and the south ends, opened a chamber. But two, or perhaps three, tombs of this form were found inside thewalls. This cemetery was well known to the Arabs, and a few years agoa party of the Qurneh dealers, armed with a bogus Museum permit, dug there for several weeks. The tombs they had rifled could bedistinguished from tombs that were intact or had been plundered inearly times by the sharper edges of the depressions left. Time hasrounded over the traces of the earlier robberies, so that ancientlyrobbed tombs look much like those which are intact, but in which theroof has fallen in causing a dip in the ground not unlike the top ofa tomb-shaft. The cemetery lies in a shoal in the dry stream-bed, atwhose mouth El Kab was placed. This shoal is a great bank of graveland a fine clay-like detritus, the beds of which lie alternately, thethickness of each varying in different parts. The practice in theXIIth dynasty was to sink the tomb-shaft until a layer of gravel wasreached sufficiently strong for a chamber to be safely cut out of it. The chambers were about 2 m. Square and probably rather less than 1·50m. High, but they were made flat-roofed, and in most cases the roofhad fallen in, crushing the bones and often also the pottery below. Even if the roof was complete when we opened the tomb, it wouldusually fall before we could examine and clear out the interment. Withonly the warning of the fall of a single pebble, or just a littlegutter of sand, a mass of perhaps two tons would suddenly drop with athud. On two occasions a man was caught by some part of the fall, andonce, just as the helpless man was being dug out, a clumsy helperdislodged a few more hundredweight and buried him again. These areanxious moments, for when this shifting ground has once begun to slip, the whole side of a tomb may fall at once. Happily we had no seriousaccident, though there were many narrow escapes. It is necessary insuch work to watch the men very carefully, and to insist on theirtaking reasonable care, for they will, if left alone, burrow beneathdangerously overhanging masses of soil rather than take the trouble ofremoving them. The method in which the door of the burial-chamber wasclosed was not at first clear; but four or five of the large jars (PL. XIV) were so often found just inside the entrance that it seemedprobable they had been used as a building material, just as thepeasants near Keneh now use the spoilt water-jars from the potteriesthere. Later on two of the doorways were found actually blocked up inthis way--three jars in the lower tier, two more above them, and theinterstices filled with mud. Probably, then, these large pots were thecommon water-jars of the Middle Kingdom. Other tomb-doors were blockedwith bricks, very roughly laid. Coffins were very rare; there was oneof unbaked clay, long and narrow; and a trace of wood (No. 121) inanother grave may have been part of a coffin. But the soil of El Kabis so damp and full of salt that unpainted wooden coffins may havedisappeared without leaving any trace. The same causes have doubtlessremoved the clothes in which the dead were buried, for of these Isaw no trace. The most remarkable fact was the entire absence ofmummification, at least, of any effective kind. In the ground near thegood XVIIIth dynasty tombs, mummies were found, perhaps the servantsof the great men of the inscribed tombs. There seemed no greatdifference in the conditions to which these mummies and the bodiesof the XIIth dynasty people had been exposed. Yet no trace ofmummy-cloth, dried skin, hair, or bitumen was ever met with in theearlier cemetery. Nor in the early burials that I opened at Ballaswere any mummies found, and certainly most of the mummies known belongto the XVIIIth dynasty or later. Is it possible that mummification wasconfined to the upper classes until the great increase of wealth inthe XVIIIth dynasty led to the wider adoption of the custom?

Some of the later Neolithic bodies were, however, dried, either byartificial means or by some property of the soil, so that the wholebody could be lifted out without any of the limbs snapping off. It isreported that the body of an engineer, who, not many years ago, diedand was buried at Assuan, and afterwards exhumed to be sold as amummy, was dried up in this way. 

A chamber generally contained more than one body; four was a notuncommon number, and in one chamber eight persons, probably women, lay side by side. This fact certainly agrees badly with the idea justexpressed of the absence of mummification. The objects found in thegraves were of well-known types. Bottle-shaped vases at the head andfeet, alabaster kohl pots, kohl sticks of ivory, bronze mirrorswithout handles, paint-slabs with their pestles and spatulæ ofserpentine and basalt, with beads of green glaze and various kindsof hard stone, were the regular staple of our finds. And the date ofthese was already well known from Kahun and other places; indeed thedate of this cemetery could be seen at once from the chips of potterylying on the surface. This conclusion was confirmed by the twoprivate stelæ (PL. IV), and a cylinder of Amenemhat III, found in onenecklace. Inscriptions were extremely rare; there were few scarabs, and perhaps the most interesting object was the plain alabasterstatuette (PL. V, 2), which was found close to the skull of its owner. This was the only figure of the kind found in the cemetery, and isprobably the earliest dated ushabti. It represents a mummy-shapedfigure; no hands, hoe, or basket can be seen, but the face is wellexecuted. 

The tombs were, of course, often robbed, how often, it was difficultto decide, for the destruction caused by the falling roof is verysimilar to that caused by early robbery. But it was very seldom that askull could be preserved, or that the exact position of the bones inthe body could be worked out. There had been very little re-use of theshafts; in one occurred pottery and a mirror of the XVIIIth dynasty, in another a Roman lamp; but these were exceptions; it was purely aMiddle Kingdom cemetery. 

22. A fine collection of beads was obtained, chiefly in hard stone. Inone tomb alone (No. 156) I spent most of two days trying to recoverthe order in which the beads had been strung on the necklaces. Sevenpeople had been buried in one chamber of this tomb; a great mass ofpebbles had fallen from the roof, smashed the bones and pottery, andso scattered the beads that some care was needed to keep togetherthose from one string. Some of the bodies were adorned with necklace, bracelets, and anklets, and had also a string of beads round thewaist. 

The commonest beads were spherical and barrel-shaped, of carnelian, haematite, and amethyst, and discs of shell, these last the commonestof all. In green felspar there were small flat discs, hawks, andhippopotamus heads. Sphinxes with human heads are generally ofamethyst. Uninscribed scarabs, in carnelian, amethyst, and jasper, were not uncommon. 

CHAPTER IV. 

NEW EMPIRE MONUMENTS. 

23. Singularly little is left in El Kab of any period later than theMiddle Kingdom, unless, indeed, the great walls be of later date thanwe have supposed. The broken pottery inside the town enclosure, thatis the south-west corner of the great square, seems to be of variousperiods, but to contain a large quantity of a fabric most like thatof the XXVIth dynasty. As Nectanebo rebuilt the temple here, it isnatural to suspect that this late pottery is of his reign or near it. Masses of similar pottery are to be found thrown out from several ofthe large tombs, in and behind the hill of Paheri. These tombs areprobably of the XVIIIth dynasty, and were re-used for piles of poorburials at the later date. Of poor burials of the XVIIIth dynasty onlytwo were found. These were in the long coffins of that coarse redearthenware, fragments of which may be seen by the tourist on his wayto the tomb of Paheri. There are a few robbed tombs near the foot ofthe hill, but no large cemetery is known. It is possible that El Kabwas not a very large town at this period; the family of Paheri andAahmes may have been the only great house of the district. 

24. Some examination was made of the beautiful little temple ofAmenhotep III, which lies an hour's walk up the desert, not with theview of copying it, for that work had already been undertaken by Mr. Clarke, but in order to discover, if possible, where the originaltemple was. It seems more than probable that all the VIth dynastyinscriptions on the great detached rock near the temple were made bypilgrims visiting a shrine; many fragments of Old Kingdom vases alsoare to be found lying near. It at first occurred to me that a cemeteryof the Old Kingdom might lie here, and a search was made in alllikely, and some unlikely, places, but nothing was found, except abroken water-jar with a late Greek inscription. The early pottery nearthe temple was then turned over; it appeared to be a mere rubbishheap, with no sign of tomb or of brick building. It lies on the slopeof the bank of loose detritus, on which the temple itself is built. The torrent which, from time to time, sweeps down the old river-bed, is, at this point, wearing away its southern bank. Below the heap ofold pottery is a little vertical cliff, 4 m. High, in so soft a rockthat it is clear the steep face has been recently formed, and thetemple itself is threatened by a small stream bed behind it. It maybe, then, as Professor Sayce first suggested, that the original templestood on the northern part of the shoal which is now washed away; thisidea is confirmed by our finding in the stream bed opposite thepresent temple the early table of offerings shown in PL. IV, 1, withmany more small fragments of inscription on pieces of sandstone. Theoriginal temple, then, has gone, the pile of pottery thrown out fromit will be carried away too; even the temple of Amenhotep may beundermined within no very long period. The effects of sudden storms inthe desert are greater than might be supposed. There is no vegetationto stop and absorb the rain, the ground is excessively hard, and allthat does not immediately sink into the soil runs rapidly down intothe larger watercourses, and forms in a few hours a deep and broadstream. Such a storm occurred three years ago at El Kab, and theinhabitants tell us that, for two days, a tributary stream enteredthe Nile there. The railway engineers have had to provide for therecurrence of such spates. 

25. The foundation deposits may be considered together. They came fromtwo temples--the large one within the walls, and the small temple ofThothmes III, which lies to the north of the town, and west of thehill of Paheri. In the latter the deposits were very numerous for sosmall a temple (_v. _ PL. XXVI). Under each corner of the main wall wasone of the little pits filled with sand, which have now become sofamiliar, and at a metre's distance along the side wall was anotherand larger deposit. The pits were about ·60 m. In diameter; in two, there was at the bottom a recess, filled with the small cups of brownclay. The objects are all closely similar to those found in the otherdeposits of this reign at Koptos and Nubt. One shape of pot, however(XXI, 14), has not been seen in a foundation deposit before, and theflat tiles (15 cm. Long) of blue glaze, one in each deposit, must bementioned. All the deposits were carefully unearthed, and the positionof the different objects noted, but there was no obvious design in thearrangement. 

The deposits found under the great temple are of more interest; thoseof Amenhotep II, under walls covered with inscriptions of Rameses II, give one more instance of the latter's usurpations. Deposits of twoother distinct classes contained no inscriptions of kings' names, andcannot be dated. Their position is shown in the very rough sketch ofthe plan of the temple in PL. I. 

The contents of the different deposits is given below:--

N. 1. A polygonal sandstone mortar (XXI, 46), twenty small cups (43), three small round dishes, three taller pots (44), flat tablets of redand green glass, a bronze pan (30), five long glass beads (38), thegreen glaze figure (29) like a small ushabti, a small green glazemodel of an ox with the legs tied together, the bronze models (33, 34, 35), a tile of dull green glaze, a model clay brick, a small piece ofbitumen, and a piece of resin which burns with a smell like myrrh. 

N. 4. Sandstone mortar, eye in green glaze (28), the other objects asin N. 1, but with the addition of tablets of calcite and lead. 

N. 5. Contained the glaze block (40), a bronze knife, a little brickof myrrh, and pottery, as in the others. 

N. 2. And N. 3. Consisted each of a single object, one a small oblongblock of iron 1-1/2 inch long, and the other a tablet of blue frit(like 37). 

These last two deposits clearly do not belong to the same builder asthe rest. 

The deposits of Amenhotep II contained alabaster models, theinscriptions identical with those of Thothmes III, excepting thechange of cartouche. 

26. The temple to the east of the central eastern gate of the townwas excavated, and a XIIth dynasty tomb was found beneath it. Thewalls had been carried away, but the floor of the temple was nearlycomplete, and from the scratches made upon it by the masons the planwas recovered. This will be published by Mr. Clarke. No foundationdeposits were discovered, and the only scrap of inscription was a partof the cartouche of Nectanebo. 

27. No certain solution can be given of the question of the date ofthe great wall. Reasons for thinking it to be the work of Usertesen IIhave been already given, but several attempts were made to test thishypothesis. The base of the wall was cleared at several points tosearch for any accumulation of rubbish left by the builders, and allthe gateways were examined for foundation deposits. In the east gate, at a height of 3 feet above the stone pavement, there was a layer ofpotsherds, painted with a rough decoration of comma-shaped dashes, andwith them were some fragments of an ostracon written in late demotic. This would show that the gateway was already partly ruined and blockedin Roman (?) times. And between the row of mastabas to the north andthe great wall were found the foot of an ushabti, perhaps of theXXVIth dynasty, and a pot (PL. XX, 13), probably Roman. The first wason the ground level, the second 5 feet above it. But the position ofthese objects only shows that the sand-heap had not reached itspresent level when they were dropped, and I observed nothing quiteinconsistent with the early date suggested. It should be added, however, that the stonework of the gates and the arch in the northwall seem, to Mr. Somers Clarke's experienced eye, to show somefeatures of a much later style. These he will describe in his ownwork on El Kab. 

28. A group of late bronzes were found at one point in the south ofthe great enclosure. They were 800 in number, each mounted on a littlewooden base. One (PL. V, 3) was a fine piece, representing Nekhebadored by a kneeling figure. The rest were Osiris figures, except one, which represented Imhetep. About a hundred were 5 inches high, orupwards, of fair workmanship, made in thin bronze cast on a core. They were all piled together in a space 1·1 m. By ·6 m. , not near toany tomb. 

29. Near the south-east corner of the town (PL. XXIV) was a peculiarbrick building, consisting of four rows of brick pillars, six in eachrow, enclosed in a surrounding wall. The pillars were about 2 m. Square, the passages between them only about ·80 m. Wide. The actual height ofthe brickwork was 1·50 m. Or less, but the building may have been a highone, for the base of a brick staircase remained between two of thepillars. Throughout the building were great numbers of pots, chieflybroken, of a long bottle-shape with a wide mouth, and pierced at thebottom, with a hole an inch wide (XX, 14); these pots exactly fittedcertain holes left at regular intervals in the brickwork. Pots nearly ofthis shape, but shorter, are still used in Egypt, being built into thewalls of pigeon-towers to serve as nesting-places for the birds. So faras the pottery guides us, the building might then be of Arab times, butthe large size of the bricks (34 cm. × 17·5 × 11), part of a stonewindow found on the south side, and the smooth surface of the sitebefore we began to dig, make it unlikely that the structure is recent. 

CHAPTER V. 

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 

30. PL. I--Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are the plan, elevation, and longitudinalsection of one (264) of the sunk arch tombs believed to belong to theearly XIIth dynasty. 

No. 4 gives the plan of the chamber in the IVth dynasty tomb ofKa-mena; 5 and 6 are rough notes of the stone walls on the east andsouth sides of the same chamber. 

No. 7 gives the plan of the important tomb in which an inscribedcylinder was found in association with Neolithic pots (No. 166, § 13). 

No. 8 is a rough-sketch plan of the great temple of El Kab, insertedto show the position of the foundation deposits. 

31. PL. II. --1. The stone vessels of the Neolithic period and the OldKingdom, as they were shown at University College. Only one was perfect;even those that look most complete were picked out in small pieces fromthe gravel or mud, and were put together by the help of our friends inEngland. On the right hand are five slate paint slabs of the laterNeolithic type; nearer the wall are diorite bowls, alabaster tables, flat dishes of limestone and alabaster, a bronze ewer (from Ka-mena), and a pottery model of a granary. 

No. 2 shows all the small objects from the important tomb with a_majūr_ burial (166)--shells, ivory disc, ivory hairpins, a flintflake, a steatite cylinder, beads, ivory bracelets, two pots and twostone bowls. (For inscription on the cylinder _v. _ PL. XX, 29). 

No. 3 represents the objects from Ka-mena's tomb as photographed infront of our house soon after being found (larger size in PL. III, 2). 

No. 4 shows a mastaba wall when just excavated. 

No. 5 is a view of our house with the stacks of pottery before it. 

PL. III. --No. 1. The sandstone statue of Nefer-shem-em. 

No. 2. The bronze and stone objects from Ka-mena of the time ofSneferu, with whose name the flat diorite bowl below was inscribed. The central bowl is of very light-coloured, translucent diorite, andthe deeper one of porphyry. Below are model tools in copper. (Theseare given in outline, PL. XVIII, 56-65. )

PL. IV. (Note by Dr. Spiegelberg. )

1. Table of offerings from dry stream bed on desert near Amenhotep'stemple, dedicated with the usual formula addressed to Anubis, Osiris, and Nekhbet, by "the confidential friend of the king, the treasurer, chief prophet, destroying the evil (?) [Kfau? asf?]" . .. And to hisfather "deserving well of his god, the confidential friend of theking, the treasurer, [A] chief prophet, privy councillor of the royaltreasure Shema[. A]. "

 [A] For _ḍasuta_, see Spiegelberg in a forthcoming paper of Aeg. Zeits. 

This is the person mentioned in a rock inscription of El Kab, published by Stern (Aeg. Zeitschr. , 1875, PL. I r. ). By thisidentification we can claim this tablet for the VIth dynasty. 

2. The inscription of this XIIth dynasty sandstone stela from thecemetery must be divided in the middle. The right half--"thewell-deserved of Anubis, Usrtsn, son of Srtuy (?)"--relates to thechief personage holding a _nabút_ in the left hand and the well-knownsceptre of command in the right. 

The person behind, who carries a long Nymphaea caerulea, is "hisbeloved son, Khuy, son of Mryt-[[. A]]tfs, " and may be the dedicatorof this stela. So we have the following genealogy:--

 Srtuy (?) | Usrtsn--Mryt-[[. A]]tfs | Khuy

3. Limestone stela of the end of the XIIth dynasty, from the cemetery, dedicated by a certain Sabna to his father, who had the same name andwas a prophet of Amon. 

In the first line we have the formula of offering addressed to Osiris, the next contain this genealogy:--

 Ankht[. A]t I | Ankht-[. A]t II = Sabna I = Mrt-[. A]ts | | Ḥny Sabna II

PL. V. --No. 1. A figure of blue-glazed ware from a XIIth dynasty tomb(No. 1). It represents a very flat-headed deity, with the youthfulside-lock, the body in mummy form, the darker lines representing abead network. 

No. 2 is the alabaster ushabti of the XIIth dynasty. 

No. 3 is the fine bronze (height 19 cm. ), now at Ghizeh, representinga man adoring Nekheb; his hands are side by side before him, palmsdown. This is by far the finest of the 800 bronzes found together; ofthese 700 were worthless, the rest ordinary Osiris figures. 

No. 4. A group of the peculiar pots in which the characters of a tableof offerings and a model of a house seem to be combined. They are onlyknown in the Middle Kingdom, occurred at Ballas as well as El Kab, andare common in museums. The offerings inside can be seen in goodexamples to be the head and legs of an ox, bread (?), and jars ofwater. One model shows the roof of a hut made of logs of wood, and theoutside staircase. 

No. 5. A group found together, consisting of a _sa_ amulet of bronze, a dark steatite cylinder, and a little glazed steatite draughtsmanwith a human head and traces of some sign inscribed below. Theinscription on the cylinder is copied in PL. XX, 28, and is ratherpuzzling. The name in a cartouche seems to be Ka-kau-ra, which is notthat of a known king. As the pottery in the tomb is of the XIIthdynasty, and the tomb is in the cemetery of that period, one mightread Kha-kau-ra, Usertesen III, but his Ka name, Neter-kheperu, isknown, and cannot be read in the other name on the cylinder. Thecylinder is of a type known in the IVth and Vth dynasties, and Dr. Petrie suggests that it may be Men-kau-ra, and that his Ka name wasMen-maat, the _maat_ being read with the straight sign only. If thisbe so, we must suppose that the owner of this grave had found thecylinder in some ancient site. 

No. 6 shows one of the small clay figures of Nekheb found behind thestone work of the east gate. 

PL. VI. --No. 1. A group of the finest stone vases. The upright dish isof diorite; rather more than two-thirds of it was recovered, all insmall pieces. It is inscribed _suten biti Sneferu_. The jar on theleft is of green slate, the central bowl of porphyry, and the restalabaster. All are probably of the IVth dynasty or earlier. 

No. 2. On the left, in the back row, the commonest coarse pot of theIVth dynasty, on the right, a less known type (XII, 29); in the centreone of the pots of Neolithic type from Ka-mena's tomb. In front is theinscribed piece of _majūr_ and the model of a granary, the latterfrom Ka-mena. 

32. PL. VII. --The upper of these two sketches by Mr. Clarke shows thetwo mastabas, C and D, in course of excavation, the great wall of ElKab behind. The lower view is between D and E (_cf. _ PL. XXIII). Itshows the two boundary walls in the centre, the steep face of sand infront, and (piled on the walls) a lot of the coarse pottery, which washere found in great quantity. The measuring rod is the 2-metre poleused in assessing the men's work. 

PL. VIII. --No. 1 is a view of another mastaba. The brickwork, whichblocks up the northern (_i. E. _, the nearer) niche, is of later date. The two niches, or false doors, the passage or chapel, the two hollowsin the brickwork that were filled with earth, and the well, in thiscase a very large one, are indicated in this view much as in a plan. 

No. 2 is a copy made by Miss Murray of the lid of a toilette-box foundin a mastaba. It is made of a veneer (? on wood) of ivory, and blueand black slips of glazed ware. 

Nos. 3-9 are ivory fragments of another box. 

PL. IX. --Copies of water-colour sketches of a stairway tomb, bothtaken from below (by Miss Murray from Miss Pirie's sketches). 

33. PL. X. --Stone vessels. 1-5 are of alabaster, and, with 6, comefrom the sunk arches, believed to be of the earlier XIIth dynasty, _i. E. _, some time between the Old Kingdom and the reign of UsertesenII; 7-12 are of the later XIIth dynasty; Nos. 7, 8 and 10 are thecommon ones, the shape 7, when in stone, being, of course, notdecorated. The vertical alabasters of the XIIth dynasty are verysimilar to some (as 23) of the earlier periods, but a slight swellnear the mouth (seen well in 47) and a greater spreading at the foot(as in 23, 25) seem to me often to distinguish the early forms. Theshapes from 15 onwards belong to the Neolithic and Old Kingdom graves, but 14 was in a XIIth dynasty grave (36); 15 is from a small stairwaytomb, 26 also. All the shapes are of alabaster, unless otherwisemarked. A rough example of No. 44 was found at Ballas, used ancientlyas a lamp with floating wick. 

34. PL. XI gives the distinctly Neolithic forms of pottery. Nos. 1, 2, 4, 12, 16, 18 are of coarse brown ware, 5-9, with 11, 13, 14, gooddrab. No. 10 is a red pebble-polished ware, 15 is a dark red. Nos. 17and 18 were found in a mastaba with Old Kingdom pots, and are probablyalso of that period. No. 13 is the important type of hard brick-redpot which was found in Ka-mena's tomb. 

PL. XII. --The upper half of the plate (20-46 and 50) gives the formsof the very coarse pottery found in great quantities above and in themastabas, and also near the temple of Amenhotep III on the desert. Most were well known before, but 26 and 32 are new. The common formsare 21, 22, 23, 32, 31, 34. No. 47 is the pot from Ka-mena's tomb, much like a Neolithic form. Nos. 48, 49, 51, 55, and the threesharp-edged bowls, are of a good ware, washed with haematite. The twolittle pots 56 (from mastaba C, PL. XXIII) are unlike any others ofthis period--pink inside, yellow out, with decoration in black line. 

35. PL. XIII. --Nos. 1-28 are the types found in the sunk arch tombsinside the walls, and are believed to be later than the Old Kingdompottery of the last plate, but earlier than that of the plates whichfollow. Most of these pots are of a rather hard light red ware, andcan be distinguished by their material alone from most of the XIIthdynasty pottery found outside the walls. But the forms 8-16 are of asoft brown ware, and are very thick and heavy. All these pots arewheel-made, but scraped over by hand in the lower half. The forms from28a to 35 are XVIIIth and XIXth dynasty, from secondary burials in theMiddle Kingdom cemetery. 

PL. XIV. --All but No. 3 are water-jars, 5, 6, 7, and 8 being thecommon forms. No. 4, with the four ears, is in a fine hard drab ware, and No. 1 is painted, but the rest, which were by far the commonestforms, are of a rather coarse, soft pottery, varying in colour fromdull brown to pink; the brown ware is the softest and most liable toflaking. In the last two can be seen the marks of the string by whichthey were held together before being baked. 

PL. XV continues the catalogue of XIIth dynasty pottery. Down thecentre are two large stands and a large bowl, each drawn from oneexample, all of a hard, drab, polished ware. The bowls 11-14 and 16, in a light-red, rather soft material, were common forms. Thehemispherical cup (18, 22) is still commoner, and was known from twoXIIth dynasty sites before. The dish in a soft red ware (21) was verycommon, occurring in nearly every tomb. The cup and stand combined(33, 34, 35) shows that the bowls in the upper part of this plate (11, etc. ) were generally placed upon the ring-stands (38-46). The compoundform is made in a weak material, and is seldom found unbroken. Thering-stands are generally of red ware, more rarely (as 38) of thebetter drab ware. 

PL. XVI. --The bottle shapes at the top are generally in red clay, but47 and 62 are of hard drab ware. 

No. 57 may be noticed as being like a Neolithic form, with a commonNeolithic mark. The small forms, 63, 64, 67, and 68, are often foundtogether. When a tomb contains one of these small varieties, itgenerally contains a great many. They perhaps mark some definiteperiod. 

No. 60 is an ordinary water-jar. Nos. 58, 70, 71, 72 are the rare drabjars, of which less than a dozen occurred in a hundred graves. 

PL. XVII. --Common forms are 76, 77, 79, 84, 86. Some of the shapes, as116, 131, also occur as the early XIIth dynasty pottery inside thewall. 

36. PL. XVIII contains the marks made while yet soft upon coarse potsfound in stairway tombs, mastabas, etc. Marks recur (as 7 and 9, 40and 41) in different tombs. Hieroglyphs are not common, but occur (25, 46). 

The name No. 44 occurs on a _majūr_, and confirms slightly theearly date given for those pots. Below are inscribed fragments oflimestone, 49-53 and 55, from Ka-mena's mastaba, 54 from aneighbouring one. Nos. 56-65 are the copper models of tools fromKa-mena's tomb. 

PL. XIX gives the marks from XIIth dynasty pots, chiefly made afterbaking, and therefore presumably due to the owners and not thepotters. Similar signs sometimes recur in different tombs (44 and 48, 45 and 46, 37 and 38, 29 and 30, 32 and 33). Can they be notes of thecontents of the jars?

37. PL. XX. --No. 1 is a piece of a bowl of incised ware found in astairway tomb. 

Nos. 2, 3 and 4 are also fragments of an incised ware found in someirregular holes on the north side of the hill of Paheri, and notbefore mentioned. With them were a few very late blue glaze beads, andtwo pots that were probably Roman, but these three fragments areevidently much older. 

No. 5 is the outline of a _majūr_, the large pot used as a coffinin the Old Kingdom. 

No. 6 is a fragment of Neolithic pottery from one of the small gravesinside the town (_cf. _ Naqada, XXXV, 74). 

Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 are from intrusive burials in the XIIthdynasty cemetery. No. 13, perhaps Roman, has a certain importance inthe question of the date of the great wall (_cf. _ § 27). 

No. 14 is one of the pots from the pigeon-house in the south of thetown (PL. XXIV). 

After the scarabs come six cylinders. 

No. 28, in black stone, perhaps Men-kau-ra, but from the XIIth dynastycemetery. 

No. 29, in green steatite, from a stairway tomb. 

No. 30, probably copper, not bronze, found with a _majūr_ burial. 

Nos. 31 and 33, black stone and ivory respectively, from another OldKingdom well. 

No. 32, a well-known type of black stone cylinder, found in a mastabawith a scrap of diorite, on which the name of Sneferu was scratched. 

38. PL. XXI gives the objects from the different foundation deposits. The first sixteen are from the small temple of Thothmes III. Nos. 1, 2and 4 are of blue glaze. The spiral mark on the bead is noteworthy; itis common in the XIIth dynasty, and is also known in the XVIIIth atDeir-el-Bahri. Nos. 3 and 8 are sandstone corn-rubbers, withinscriptions in blue paint; 5 and 9 are alabaster models of the headof a fire-drill (?) and of a double shell. The inscriptions are allthe same: "The good god, Menkheper-ra, beloved of Nekheb. " No. 10 is alittle wooden girdle-tie; 6, 7 and 11 are bronze tools. The five potsbelow are on a smaller scale. 

Nos. 17 to 24 are the pots from the deposits of Amenhotep II, foundunder the great temple inside El Kab. 

From No. 25 onwards all are from the later deposits (PL. I, 8 N), alsounder the great temple. Of green glaze are Nos. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 38, 39 and 48; of bronze are Nos. 31, 33, 34, 35, 32; of clay, 41 and47. No. 42 is of bone, No. 37 of calcite, Nos. 36 and 39 of redglass. Nos. 43 and 44 (scale 1/6) are the typical shapes of pottery. Nos. 45 and 46 show the coarse sandstone mortars found in thesedeposits. 

39. PL. XXII is a plan of the XIIth dynasty tombs found outside theeast wall of the temple. 

PL. XXIII gives the large group of mastabas found under the heap ofsand north of the town wall. 

PL. XXIV shows a group of buildings in the southern half of the townenclosure, mastabas, small open graves of the Libyan period, andarched graves of the XIIth dynasty. 

PL. XXV gives drawings of a stone gateway in the great wall, underwhich a vain search was made for foundation deposits. 

PL. XXVI gives the plan of the small temple of Thothmes III north ofthe town, from which the numerous foundation deposits were obtained. The deposits are indicated by circles. 

40. PL. XXVII is a catalogue of the small Libyan tombs showing thegroups of alabaster and pottery vessels that are commonly groupedtogether. 

 * * * * *

INDEX. 

 PAGE

 Alabaster vases, etc 4-6, 8-10, 13, 14, 18, 19 Amen-ankh-as, scarab of 5 Amenemhat III, cylinder of 15 Amenhotep III's temple 2, 16 Analysis of copper tools 4 Arching, brick 13, 14

 Balls of limestone and carnelian 7 Beads, amethyst 15 " blue frit 9 " with gold caps 10 " blue glaze 20 " carnelian 7-9, 14, 15 " copper 9 " felspar 9 " glass 16 " gold 7, 9, 14 " gold foil 14 " green felspar 9 " green glaze 6, 15 " haematite 15 " ivory 9, 15 " lapis lazuli 14 " serpentine 6, 9 " shell discs 15 " steatite 9 Blue-glaze figure 18 Box for burial 7-9 Bracelets 6, 7, 9, 10, 18 Bronze figures, late 17, 18 Burial, headless 10 " irregular 5 " contracted 6, 7, 9, 10 Burials, number in chamber 15

 Canopic jars 8 Cists, pottery 4-6, 8, 10, 11 Clarke, Mr. Somers 1 Comb 6, 10 Copper, bowl and ewer of 4, 18 " _sa_ amulet 18 " tools, analysis 4, 18, 20 " rod 14 Corn-grinders 20 Cylinder of Ka-ra 10, 20 " of Men-kau-ra 19 " of User-kaf 10, 20 " Usertesen III 18 " of Amenemhat III 15 " black stone 5, 6, 20 " ivory 6, 20 " steatite 10, 12, 18, 20

 Dating of New Race 11, 12 Diorite bowls 3-8, 18 Distribution of antiquities 1 Dolls, rude pottery 6 Doors, slabs for 3, 7, 8 Draughtsman, glazed steatite 18

 Ewer, copper 4, 18

 Felspar, discs of 6, 9, 15 Fire-drill, model 20 Flint, knife 8 " flake 18 Foundation-deposits 16, 20 Foundations of temple 2

 Girdle-tie, wooden 20 Gold 7, 9, 14 Graffiti, rock with 2 Granary, models of 4, 18, 19 Graves 9, 10 Green paint 4, 5 " " on face 3, 12 " glaze beads 6, 15

 Hairpins 6, 8, 9, 18 Haworth, Mr. Jesse 1

 Inscriptions 16, 18 " on corn-grinders 20 Incised pottery, black 7, 8, 12, 20 Ivory box 4 " cup 7 " jars 7 " bowls 7 " disc 9, 18 " veneer 9, 19

 Jar, marble 8, 14 " green slate 19 Jars, cylinder with cordage pattern (lattice) 9 " wavy-handled 9 " blocking doorways 14

 Kab, El, description of site 2 " " wall of 2 " " Roman landing-stage 2 " " temple foundations 2 " " evidence for dating New Race 11 Ka-mena, mastaba of 3 Ka-ra, steatite cylinder of 10, 20 Kohl-pots 15 " sticks, ivory 15

 Libyan burials 3 " or New Race 11 " race, relation to Old Kingdom 12 Limestone bowls 6 " vases 7, 8 Linen cloth 11

 Majūr burials 3-10, 13, 19, 20 Malachite 4, 7, 10, 11 Mastaba of Ka-mena 3 Mastabas with square shafts 3-7 " with sloping stairways 3, 7-9 Mastabas with sloping stairways, neolithic character of 8 Matwork 9 Mena's tomb, later New Race 13 Men-kau-ra, cylinder of 19 Middle Kingdom tombs 13 Mirror, XVIIIth dynasty 15 Mirrors without handles 15 Model of shell 20 " tools, copper 4, 18 Mummification, absence of 15

 Neb. Ra, steatite plaque 7 Nectanebo, cartouche 17 Nefer-shem-em 5, 18 Neolithic burials 3 " _see_ Libyan 11 " relation to Old Kingdom 12 New Race, burials 3 " _see_ Libyan 11 " absence of Egyptian types 12 " relation to Old Kingdom 12 " characteristics 13 " pre-dynastic 11

 Palette, slate 6, 8, 9 " rubbers for 8 Paint-slabs with pestles 15, 17 Permission, delay in receiving 1 Pigeon-house (?) 17, 20 Pirie, Miss A. A. 1 Plaque, steatite, Neb. Ra 7 Porphyry bowl 4, 5, 18, 19 Pottery, Neolithic or New Race 4, 6, 8 " of IVth dynasty 7-10, 16, 19, 20 " of XIIth dynasty 3 " of XVIIIth dynasty 15 " of New Race, handmade 12 " bars of 5, 10 " coffins 4-6, 8, 10, 11 " marks 8, 20 " coarse, animal head 9 " " dolls 6 " wheel-made 10, 19

 Rameses II, temple of 2 Recurrence of groups 8 Rock-inscriptions 16 Roofing of tombs 4, 9, 11, 14 Roman landing-stage 2

 Saucers, with cross of white paint 14 Scarabs 15 Seals, jar 8 Serpentine beads 6 Shell with white paint 4 " with green paint 6, 9-11 Slate, dish of 6 " palette 6, 8, 9 Sneferu, diorite bowls of 3, 5 " Ka-name on diorite dish 4, 19 Soul-houses 18 Spatula 10 Spatulæ, serpentine and basalt 15 Sphinxes, seated 15 Stairway tombs 3, 7-9 " " XIIth dynasty 13 Statues of Nefer-shem-em 5, 18 Statuette, alabaster 15, 18 Steles, XIIth dynasty 15, 18

 Table of offerings, early 16, 18 Thothmes III's temple 16 Tombs, rock, living in 1 " types of 3 Tylor, Mr. J. J. 1

 User-Kaf, inscribed cylinder of 10, 20 Usertesen III, cylinder of 18 Ushabti, alabaster 15, 18

 Workmen, from Quft 1

 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 

 * * * * *

EL KAB. TOMB PLANS. I. 

[Illustration: EARLY XII. DYN. TOMB. PLAN, SECTION AND ELEVATION. ]

[Illustration: PLAN OF MAGUR BURIAL NO. 166. ]

[Illustration: KAMENA CHAMBER, PLAN. ]

[Illustration: KAMENA CHAMBER, SIDE AND END. ]

[Illustration: POSITION OF FOUNDATION DEPOSITS UNDER TEMPLE. ]

EL KAB. II. 

[Illustration: STONE VASES, OLD KINGDOM. ]

[Illustration: CYLINDER, BEADS, &c. , FROM ONE TOMB. (§ 13. )]

[Illustration: FROM TOMB OF KAMENA. (§ 5. )]

[Illustration: PART OF A MASTABA WALL. ]

[Illustration: POTTERY BEFORE THE HOUSE. ]

EL KAB. III. 

[Illustration: NEFER-SHEM-EM. ]

[Illustration: FROM TOMB OF KA-MENA. ]

EL KAB. IV. 

[Illustration: FROM NEAR AMENHOTEP III. TEMPLE. ]

[Illustration: XII. DYN. STELA. ]

[Illustration: XII. DYN. STELA. ]

EL KAB. V. 

[Illustration: GLAZE. ]

[Illustration: ALABASTER USHABTI. ]

[Illustration: BRONZE]. 

[Illustration: XII. DYN. ]

[Illustration: SA AMULET, ETC. ]

[Illustration: GATE DEPOSIT. ]

EL KAB. VI. 

[Illustration: DIORITE AND ALABASTER. OLD EMPIRE. ]

[Illustration: POTTERY OF OLD EMPIRE. ]

EL KAB. MASTABAS. VII. 

[Illustration: MASTABAS C. AND NEFERSHEMEM, LOOKING TO GREAT NORTHWALL. ]

[Illustration: MASTABAS OF NEFERSHEMEM AND E. , LOOKING TO GREAT NORTHWALL. ]

EL KAB. MASTABA. VIII. 

[Illustration]

[Illustration: LID OF A BOX, OLD EMPIRE. ]

[Illustration]

EL KAB. STAIRWAY TOMB. IX. 

[Illustration: FROM BELOW LOOKING NORTH]

[Illustration: FROM BELOW LOOKING SOUTH]

EL KAB. ALABASTER VESSELS, XII. AND IV. DYN. X. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. LIBYAN AND OLD KINGDOM POTTERY. XI. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. OLD KINGDOM POTTERY. XII. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. POTTERY, EARLY XII. DYN. XIII. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. XII. DYN. WATER JARS. XIV. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. XII. DYN. POTTERY. XV. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. XII. DYN. POTTERY. XVI. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. XII. DYN. POTTERY. XVII. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. MARKS ON OLD KINGDOM POTTERY. XVIII. 

[Illustration]

[Illustration: LIMESTONE FRAGMENTS. BRONZE TOOLS. ]

EL KAB. MARKS ON MIDDLE KINGDOM POTS. XIX. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. XX. 

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: XII. DYN. SCARABS. CYLINDERS. ]

EL KAB. FOUNDATION DEPOSITS. XXI. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. CEMETERY E. OF TOWN. XXII. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. MASTABAS. XXIII. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. GROUP OF TOMBS IN S. E. ANGLE OF THE ENCLOSURE. XXIV. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. GATEWAY IN WALL. XXV. 

[Illustration]

[Illustration: SOUTH END OF PASSAGE THROUGH SOUTH WALL. ]

[Illustration: NORTH END OF PASSAGE THROUGH SOUTH WALL. ]

EL KAB. TEMPLE OF THOTHMES III. XXVI. 

[Illustration]

EL KAB. SMALL LIBYAN TOMBS. XXVII. 

[Illustration]