The name occurs in an inscription dated in the fifth year of Merenptah, the successor of Ramses II., and often supposed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. It is there written with the determinative of a people, not of a city or country, and reads in our conventional transliteration Ysiràar, but in reality agrees very closely to the Hebrew [...] the last portion aar being recognised as the equivalent of el in several words. Merenptah states that “Israel is fekt (?) without seed (grain or offspring), Syria (Kharu) has become widows (Kharut) of or to Egypt.” We can form no conclusion from these statements as to the relation in which the Israelites stood to Pharaoh and to Egypt, except that they are represented as having been powerless. It is pretty clear, however, from the context that they were then in Palestine, or at least in Syria. Steindorff suggests that they may have entered Syria from Chaldæa during the disturbed times in Egypt at the end of the eighteenth dynasty, and connects them with the movements of the Khabiri (Hebrews?) mentioned in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets. On the other hand, it is of course possible, as Professor Petrie points out, that this reference to the Israelites may have some connection with the Exodus itself. M. Clermont Ganneau thinks that the localities mentioned are all in Southern Palestine.*
M. Edouard Naville found at Thebes many remains of the Punt sculptures. The Puntites appear with their aquiline features, their pointed beards, and their long hair; negroes also of black and brown varieties are represented adjoining the Puntites proper. There are wickerwork huts, and a figure of a large white dog with its ears hanging down. Long-billed birds also appear flying about in the trees. Their nests have been forsaken and robbed, and the men are represented as gathering incense from the trees. Altogether, much invaluable information has been gathered concerning the famous people who lived in the Land of Punt, and with whom for a long period the Egyptians held intercommunication. Other discoveries were made near the great temple of Karnak, and the buildings of Medinet-Habu were cleared of rubbish in order to show their true proportions.
From its foundation, the Egypt Exploration Fund has received large pecuniary support from the United States, chiefly through the enthusiasm and energy of Dr. W. C. Winslow, of Boston. In 1880 Doctor Winslow, who had been five months in Egypt, returned to America deeply impressed with the importance of scientific research in Egypt, and, upon hearing of the Exploration Fund in London, he wrote a letter expressive of his interest and sympathy to the president, Sir Erasmus Wilson, which brought a reply not only from him, but also from the secretary, Miss Edwards, expatiating upon the purpose and needs of the society, and outlining optimistically its ultimate accomplishments.
Doctor Winslow was elected honorary treasurer of the Fund for the United States for the year 1883-84.* Many prominent residents became interested and added their names to its membership, and have given it their effort and their hearty financial support. Among the distinguished American members have been J. R. Lowell, G. W. Curtis, Charles Dudley Warner, and among the chief Canadian members are Doctor Bourinot and Dr. J. William Dawson.
The Fund has always preserved amicable relations with the Government Department of Antiquities in Egypt. Excavations are conducted by skilled explorers, and the results published promptly with due regard to scientific accuracy and pictorial embellishment. The antiquities found are either deposited in the National Museum at Cairo, or distributed among public museums in the United Kingdom and the United States of America and Canada, in strict proportion to the contribution of each locality. Exhibitions are usually held in London in July of each year.
The Fund now consists of three departments, for each of which separate accounts are kept. These departments are: 1. The Exploration Fund, for conducting archeological research generally, by means of systematic excavations. 2. The Archæological Survey, for preserving an accurate pictorial record of monuments already excavated but liable to destruction. 3. The Græco-Roman Branch, for the discovery of the remains of classical antiquity and early Christianity.
The first work of the Græco-Roman Branch was to publish the recently discovered Oxyrrhynchos papyri, of which two volumes, containing many important classical and theological texts, were issued in 1898 and 1899 and 1900. Among its contents are parts of two odes of Pindar, of which one begins with a description of the poet’s relation to Xenocritus, the inventor of the Locrian mode of music; a considerable piece of the “Kolax” of Menander, one of the two plays upon which the “Eunuchus” of Terence was based; part of a rhetorical treatise in Doric dialect, which is undoubtedly a work of the Pythagorean school; the conclusion of the eighteenth Keo-Tcfe of Julius Africanus, dealing with a question of Homeric criticism; and part of a biography of Alcibiades. A new light is thrown upon some of the less-known departments of Greek literature by a well-preserved papyrus, which contains on one side a prose mime in two scenes, a work of the school of Sophron, having points of resemblance to the fifth mime of Herondas; while on the other side is an amusing farce, partly in prose, partly in verse. The scene is laid on the shores of the Indian Ocean, and the plot turns upon the rescue of a Greek maiden from the hands of barbarians, who speak a non-Greek language with elements apparently derived from Prakrit.*
The new Homeric fragments include one of Iliad VI., with critical signs and interesting textual notes. Sappho, Euripides (Andromache, “Archelaus,” and “Medea”), Antiphanes, Thucydides, Plato (“Gorgias” and “Republic”), Æschines, Demosthenes, and Xenophon are also represented. Among the theological texts are fragments of the lost Greek original of the “Apocalypse of Baruch” and of the missing Greek conclusion of the “Shepherd” of Hennas.
In the winter of 1898-99, Doctors Grenfell and Hunt conducted excavations for the Græco-Roman Branch in the Fayûm. In 1899-1900, they excavated at Tebtunis, in the Fayûm, on behalf of the University of California; and by an arrangement between that university and the Egypt Exploration Fund an important section of the Tebtunis papyri, consisting of second-century B.C. papyri from crocodile mummies, was issued jointly by the two bodies, forming the annual volumes of the Græco-Roman Branch for 1900-01 and 1901-02. Since 1900 Doctors Grenfell and Hunt have excavated each winter on behalf of the Græco-Roman Branch,—in 1900-01 in the Fayûm, and in 1901-02 both there and at Hibeh, with the result that a very large collection of Ptolemaic papyri was obtained. In the winter of 1902-03, after finishing their work at Hibeh, they returned to Oxyrrhynchos. Here was found a third-century fragment of a collection of sayings of Jesus, similar in style to the so-called “Logia” discovered at Oxyrrhynchos in 1897. As in that papyrus, the separate sayings are introduced by the words “Jesus saith,” and are for the most part unrecorded elsewhere, though some which are found in the Gospels (e.g. “The Kingdom of God is within you” and “Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first”) occur here in different surroundings. Six sayings are preserved, unfortunately in an imperfect condition. But the new “Logia” papyrus supplies more evidence concerning its origin than was the case with its predecessor, for it contains an introductory paragraph stating that what follows consisted of “the words which Jesus, the Living Lord, spake” to two of His disciples; and, moreover, one of the uncanonical sayings is already extant in part, the conclusion of it, “He that wonders shall reign and he that reigns shall rest,” being quoted by Clement of Alexandria from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. It is, indeed, possible that this Gospel was the source from which all this second series of “Logia” was derived, or they, or some of them, may perhaps have been taken from the Gospel according to the Egyptians, to which Professor Harnack and others have referred the “Logia” found in 1897. But the discoverers are disposed to regard both series as collections of sayings currently ascribed to our Lord rather than as extracts from any one uncanonical gospel.
The Royal Tombs at Abydos: Reconstruction of the First and Second Dynasties: The Ten Temples at Abydos: The statuette of Khûfûi: Pottery and Pottery Marks: The Expedition of the University of California.
Some interesting explorations have been conducted in Egypt by the Exploration Fund during the four years 1900-04, under the guidance of Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie, whose enthusiasm and patience for the work in this field seem to increase with the years of labour. In the winter of 1899-1900, Professor Petrie and his zealous helpers began their investigation of the royal tombs of the first dynasty at Abydos. Commenting on this undertaking, Professor Petrie writes:
“It might have seemed a fruitless and thankless task to work at Abydos after it had been ransacked by Mariette, and had been for the last four years in the hands of the Mission Amélineau. My only reason was that the extreme importance of results from there led to a wish to ascertain everything possible about the early royal tombs after they were done with by others, and to search even for fragments of the pottery. To work at Abydos had been my aim for years past; but it was only after it was abandoned by the Mission Amélineau that at last, on my fourth application for it, I was permitted to rescue for historical study the results that are here shown.
“Nothing is more disheartening than being obliged to gather results out of the fraction left behind by past plunderers. In these royal tombs there had been not only the plundering of the precious metals and the larger valuables by the wreckers of early ages; there was after that the systematic destruction of monuments by the vile fanaticism of the Kopts, which crushed everything beautiful and everything noble that mere greed had spared; and worst of all, for history, came the active search in the last four years for everything that could have a value in the eyes of purchasers, or be sold for profit regardless of its source; a search in which whatever was not removed was deliberately and avowedly destroyed in order to enhance the intended profits of European speculators. The results are therefore only the remains which have escaped the lust of gold, the fury of fanaticism, and the greed of speculators in this ransacked spot.
“A rich harvest of history has come from the site which was said to be exhausted; and in place of the disordered confusion of names without any historical connection, which was all that was known from the Mission Amélineau, we now have the complete sequence of kings from the middle of the dynasty before Mena to probably the close of the second dynasty, and we can trace in detail the fluctuations of art throughout these reigns.” *
At the time when Professor Maspero brought his history of Egypt to a close, the earliest known historical ruler of Egypt was King Mena or Menés.**
Mena is the first king on the fragmentary list of Manetho, and the general accuracy of Manetho was supported by the accounts of Herodotus and other ancient writers. For several centuries these accounts were accepted as the basis of authentic history. With the rise of the science of Egyptology, however, search began to be made for some corroboration of the actual existence of Mena, and this was found in the inscriptions of a temple wall at Abydos, which places Mena at the head of the first dynasty; and, allowing for differences of language, the records of Manetho relating to the earlier dynasty were established. Mena was therefore accepted as the first king of the first dynasty up to the very end of the nineteenth century.
As a result of Professor Petrie ‘s recent investigations, however, he has been enabled to carry back the line of the early kings for three or four generations.
The royal tombs at Abydos lie closely together in a compact group on a site raised slightly above the level of the surrounding plain, so that the tombs could never be flooded. Each of the royal tombs is a large square pit, lined with brickwork. Close around it, on its own level, or higher up, there are generally small chambers in rows, in which were buried the domestics of the king. Each reign adopted some variety in the mode of burial, but they all follow the type of the prehistoric burials, more or less developed. The plain square pit, like those in which the predynastic people were buried, is here the essential of the tomb. It is surrounded in the earlier examples of Zer or Zet by small chambers opening from it. By Merneit these chambers were built separately around it. By Den an entrance passage was added, and by Qa the entrance was turned to the north. At this stage we are left within reach of the early passage-mastabas and pyramids. Substituting a stone lining and roof for bricks and wood, and placing the small tombs of domestics farther away, we reach the type of the mas-taba-pyramid of Snofrui, and so lead on to the pyramid series of the Old Kingdom.
The careful manner with which all details of a burial were supervised under the first dynasty enables the modern Egyptologist, by a skilful piecing together of evidence, to reconstruct an almost perfect picture of the life of Egypt at the dawn of civilisation. One of our most valuable sources of information is due to the fact that, in building the walls of the royal tombs, there were deposited in certain parts within the walls objects now technically known as deposits. We do not know whether, in selecting these objects, the ancient Egyptian had regard to what he considered their intrinsic value, or whether, as was most probable, it was some religious motive that prompted his action. Often the objects thus deposited come under the designation of pottery, although the vases were sometimes shaped of stone and not of clay. Within such vases all kinds of objects were preserved. The jar or vase was closed with a lump of clay, either flat or conical, and the clay was impressed, while wet, with a seal.
A detailed and elaborate examination of the relative positions of the tombs, their dimensions, and the objects found in them, compared with the various fragments of historical records of the early dynasties, enables us to reconstruct the exact order of these ancient rulers. This sequence is:
Following the dating tentatively computed by Professor Petrie, the dates of some of these kings are:
Thus we have reconstructed the list of Thinite kings before Mena so far as the facts allow, and perhaps so far as we are ever likely to ascertain them.
The facts about the second dynasty, the kings after Qa, must now be studied. In the tomb of Perabsen it was found that there were buried with him vases of three other kings, which are therefore his predecessors. Their names are Hotepahaui, Raneb, and Neteren; and it is certain that Raneb preceded Neteren, as the latter had defaced and re-used a vase of the former. As on statue No. 1, Cairo Museum, these three names are in the above order, and, as the succession of two of them is now proved, it is only reasonable to accept them in this order. From all the available facts it seems that we ought to restore the dynasty thus:
The oldest tomb that we can definitely assign is that marked B 7, the tomb of King Ka. This is a pit with sloping sides; the thickness of the brick walls is that of the length of one brick, and the soft footing of the wall and pressure of sand behind it has overthrown the longer sides.
The broken pottery mixed with the sand, which filled it, largely consisted of cylinder jars, like the later prehistoric form; and these had many inscriptions on them, written in ink with a brush, most of which showed the name of Ka in the usual panelled frame. There can therefore be no doubt of the attribution of this tomb.
The tomb B 9 is perhaps that of King Zeser, who seems to have been a successor of Ka. It is of the same construction as that of Ka. The tomb B 10 appears to be the oldest of the great tombs, by its easternmost position; and the objects of Narmer point to this as his tomb. In both the thickness and the batter of the walls there is a care shown in proportioning the strength of the ends and the sides. The tomb B 15 is probably that of King Sma. Its walls are not quite so thick, being fifty inches at the end. The post-holes in the floor suggest that there were five on the long side, and one in the middle of each end, as in the tomb of Narmer. But along the sides are holes for roofing beams near the top of the wall. These roof beams do not at all accord with the posts; and this proves that, here at least, the posts were for backing a wooden chamber inside the brick chamber. If this be the case here, it was probably also true in Narmer’s tomb; and hence these brick tombs were only the protective shell around a wooden chamber which contained the burial. This same system is known in the first dynasty tombs, and we see here the source of the chambered tombs of Zer and Zet. Before the age of Mena, the space around the wood chamber was used for dropping in offerings between the framing posts; and then, after Mena, separate brick chambers were made around the wooden chamber in order to hold more offerings.*
The tomb B 19, which contained the best tablet of Aha-Mena, is probably his tomb; for the tomb with his vases at Naqada is more probably that of his queen Neithotep. As both the tombs B 17 and 18 to the north of this contained objects of Mena, it is probable that they were the tombs of some members of his family.
The great cemetery of the domestics of this age is the triple row of tombs to the east of the royal tombs; in all the thirty-four tombs here, no name was found beside that of Aha on the jar sealings, and the two tombs, B 6 and B 14, seen to be probably of the same age. In B 14 were found only objects of Aha, and three of them were inscribed with the name of Bener-eb, probably the name of a wife or a daughter of Mena, which is not found in any other tomb.*
From the time of Mena has come down to us an ebony tablet, as shown in the illustration. This is the most complete of the inscriptions of this king, and was found in two portions in the tombs marked B 18 and B 19. The signs upon the tablet are most interesting. On the top line, after the cartouche of Aha-Mena, there are two sacred boats, probably of Sokaris, and a shrine and temenos of Nit. In the line below is seen a man making an offering, and behind him is a bull running over undulating ground into a net stretched between two poles, while at the end, standing upon a shrine, is a bird, which appears to be the ibis of Thot. A third line shows three boats upon a canal or river, passing between certain places, and it has been reasonably conjectured that the other signs in this line indicate these places as being Biu, a district of Memphis; Pa She (or “the dwelling of the lake”), the capital of the Fayum; and the Canal of Mer, or Bahr Yusef. So far this tablet contains picture signs, but the fourth line gives a continued series of hieroglyphics, and is the oldest line of such characters yet discovered. Mr. F. LI. Griffiths translates these characters as “who takes the throne of Horus.”
In the north-west corner of the tomb, a stairway of bricks was roughly inserted in later times in order to give access to the shrine of Osiris. That this is not an original feature is manifest: the walls are burnt red by the burning of the tomb, while the stairs are built of black mud brick with fresh mud mortar smeared over the reddened wall. It is notable that the burning of these tombs took place before their re-use in the eighteenth dynasty; as is also seen by the re-built doorway of the tomb of Den, which is of large black bricks over smaller red burnt bricks. It is therefore quite beside the mark to attribute this burning to the Kopts.
The tomb of King Zer has an important secondary history as the site of the shrine of Osiris, established in the eighteenth dynasty (for none of the pottery offered there is earlier than that of Amenhôthes III.), and visited with offerings from that time until the twenty-sixth dynasty, when additional sculptures were placed here.
Afterwards it was despoiled by the Kopts in erasing the worship of Osiris. It is the early state of the place as the tomb of King Zer that we have to study here, and not its later history.
The tomb chamber has been built of wood; and the brick cells around it were built subsequently against the wooden chamber, as their rough, unplastered ends show; moreover, the cast of the grain of the wood can be seen on the mud mortar adhering to the bricks. There are also long, shallow grooves in the floor, a wide one near the west wall, three narrow ones parallel to that, and a short cross groove, all probably the places of beams which supported the wooden chamber. Besides these there was till recently a great mass of carbonised wood along the north side of the floor. This was probably part of the flooring of the tomb, which, beneath the woodwork, was covered with a layer of bricks, which lay on clean sand. But all the middle of the tomb had been cleared to the native marl for building the Osiris shrine, of which some fragments of sculpture in hard limestone are now all that remain.
A strange feature here is that of the red recesses, such as were also found in the tomb of Zet. The large ones are on the west wall, and in the second cell on the north wall. No meaning can yet be assigned to these, except as spirit-entrances to the cells of offerings, like the false doors in tombs of the Old Kingdom.
In spite of the plundering of the tombs in various ages, the work of the Egypt Exploration Fund was so thorough that not a few gold objects have been found in the course of recent excavations. By far the most important discovery of recent years was that of some jewelry in the tomb of King Zer. The story of this find is so entertaining, and illustrates so admirably the method of the modern scientific explorer, that we give the account of it in Professor Petrie’s own words:
“While my workmen were clearing the tomb, they noticed among the rubbish which they were moving a piece of the arm of a mummy in its wrappings. It lay in a broken hole in the north wall of the tomb. The party of four who found it looked into the end of the wrappings and saw a large gold bead, the rosette in the second bracelet. They did not yield to the natural wish to search further or to remove it; but laid the arm down where they found it until Mr. Mace should come and verify it. Nothing but obtaining the complete confidence of the workmen, and paying them for all they find, could ever make them deal with valuables in this careful manner. On seeing it, Mr. Mace told them to bring it to our huts intact, and I received it quite undisturbed. In the evening the most intelligent of the party was summoned as a witness of the opening of the wrappings, so that there should be no suspicion that I had not dealt fairly with the men. I then cut open the linen bandages, and found, to our great surprise, the four bracelets of gold and jewelry. The verification of the exact order of threading occupied an hour or two, working with a magnifier, my wife and Mr. Mace assisting. When recorded, the gold was put in the scales and weighed against sovereigns before the workman, who saw everything. Rather more than the value of gold was given to the men, and thus we ensured their good-will and honesty for the future.”
The hawk bracelet consists of thirteen gold and fourteen turquoise plaques in the form of the façade with the hawk, which usually encloses the ka name of the king. The gold hawks have been cast in a mould with two faces, and the junction line has been carefully removed and burnished. The gold was worked by chisel and burnishing; no grinding or file marks are visible. In the second bracelet, with the rosette, two groups of beads are united at the sides by bands of gold wire and thick hair. The fastening of the bracelet was by a loop and button. This button is a hollow ball of gold with a shank of gold wire fastened in it. The third bracelet is formed of three similar groups, one larger, and the other smaller on either side. The middle of each group consists of three beads of dark purple lazuli. The fastening of this bracelet was by a loop and button. The fourth bracelet is fashioned of hour-glass beads.
In this extraordinary group of the oldest jewelry known, we see unlimited variety and fertility of design. Excepting the plain gold balls, there is not a single bead in any one bracelet which would be interchangeable with those in another bracelet. Each is of independent design, fresh and free from all convention or copying.
The tomb of Zet consists of a large chamber twenty feet wide and thirty feet long, with smaller chambers around it at its level, the whole bounded by a thick brick wall, which rises seven and a half feet to the roof, and then three and a half feet more to the top of the retaining wall. Outside of this on the north is a line of small tombs about five feet deep, and on the south a triple line of tombs of the same depth. And apparently of the same system and same age is the mass of tombs marked W, which are parallel to the tomb of Zet. Later there appears to have been built the long line of tombs, placed askew, in order not to interfere with those which have been mentioned, and then this skew line gave the di-rection to the next tomb, that of Merneit, and later on to that of Azab. The private graves around the royal tomb are all built of mud brick, with a coat of mud plaster over it, and the floor is of sand, usually also coated over with mud.
The first question about these great tombs is how they were covered over. Some have said that such spaces could not be roofed, and at first sight it would seem almost impossible. But the actual beams found yet remaining in the tombs are as long as the widths of the tombs, and therefore timber of such sizes could be procured. In the tomb of Qa the holes for the beams yet remain in the walls, and even the cast of the end of a beam, and in the tombs of Merneit, Azab, and Mer-sekha are posts and pilasters to help in supporting a roof. The clear span of the chamber of Zet is 240 inches, or 220 if the beams were carried on a wooden lining, as seems likely. It is quite practicable to roof over these great chambers up to spans of twenty feet. The wood of such lengths was actually used, and, if spaced out over only a quarter of the area, the beams would carry their load with full safety. Any boarding, mats, or straw laid over the beams would not increase the load. That there was a mass of sand laid over the tomb is strongly shown by the retaining wall around the top. This wall is roughly built, and not intended to be a visible feature. The outside is daubed with mud plaster, and has a considerable slope; the inside is left quite rough, with bricks in and out.
Turning now to the floor, the basis of it is mud plastering, which was whitewashed. On that were laid beams around the sides, and one down the middle: these beams were placed before the mud floor was hard, and have sunk about one-quarter inch into it. On the beams a ledge was recessed, and on this ledge the edges of the flooring planks rested. Such planks would not bend in the middle by a man standing on them, and therefore made a sound floor. Over the planks was laid a coat of mud plaster. This construction doubtless shows what was the mode of flooring the palaces and large houses of the early Egyptians, in order to keep off the damp of the ground in the Nile valley. For common houses a basis of pottery jars turned mouth down was used for the same purpose. A very striking example of this method was unearthed at Koptos.
The sides of the great central chamber of Zet are not clear in arrangement. The brick cross walls, which subdivide them into separate cells, have no finished faces on their ends. All the wall faces are plastered and whitewashed; but the ends of the cross walls are rough bricks, all irregularly in and out. Moreover, the bricks project forward irregularly over the beam line. It seems, then, that there was an upright timber lining to the chamber, against which the cross walls were built the walls thus having rough ends projecting over the beams. The footing of this upright plank lining is indicated by a groove left along the western floor beam between the ledge on the beam and the side of the flooring planks. Thus we reach a wooden chamber, lined with upright planks, which stood out from the wall, or from the backs of the beams. How the side chambers were entered is not shown; whether there was a door to each or not. But as they were intended to be for ever closed, and as the chambers in two corners were shut off by brickwork all round, it seems likely that all the side chambers were equally closed. And thus, after the slain domestics and offerings were deposited in them, and the king in the centre hall, the roof would be permanently placed over the whole.
The height of the chamber is proved by the cast of straw which formed part of the roofing, and which comes at the top of the course of headers on edge which copes the wall all around the chamber. Over this straw there was laid one course of bricks a little recessed, and beyond that is the wide ledge all round before reaching the retaining wall. The height of the main chamber was 90.6 inches from the floor level.
Having examined the central chamber, the chambers at the sides should be next considered. The cross walls were built after the main brick outside was finished and plastered. The deep recesses coloured red, on the north side, were built in the construction; where the top is preserved entire, as in a side chamber on the north, it is seen that the roofing of the recess was upheld by building in a board about an inch thick. The shallow recesses along the south side were merely made in the plastering, and even in the secondary plastering after the cross walls were built. All of these recesses, except that at the south-west, were coloured pink-red, due to mixing burnt ochre with the white.
The tomb of Merneit was not at first suspected to exist, as it had no accumulation of pottery over it; and the whole ground had been pitted all over by the Mission Amélineau making “quelques sondages,” without revealing the chambers or the plan. As soon, however, as Petrie began systematically to clear the ground, the scheme of a large central chamber, with eight long chambers for offerings around it, and a line of private tombs enclosing it, stood apparent. The central chamber is very accurately built, with vertical sides parallel to less than an inch. It is about twenty-one feet wide and thirty feet long, or practically the same as the chamber of Zet. Around the chamber are walls forty-eight to fifty-two inches thick, and beyond them a girdle of long, narrow chambers forty-eight inches wide and 160 to 215 inches long. Of these chambers for offerings, Nos. 1, 2, 5, and 7 still contain pottery in place, and No. 3 contains many jar sealings.
At a few yards distant from the chambers full of offerings is a line of private graves almost surrounding the royal tomb. This line has an interruption at the south end of the west side similar to the interruption of the retaining wall of the tomb of Zet at that quarter. It seems, therefore, that the funeral approached it from that direction.
The chamber of the tomb of Merneit shows signs of burning on both the walls and the floor. A small piece of wood yet remaining indicates that it also had a wooden floor like the other tombs. Against the walls stand pilasters of brick; and, although these are not at present more than a quarter of the whole height of the wall, they originally reached to the top. These pilasters are entirely additions to the first building; they stand against the plastering and upon a loose layer of sand and pebbles about four inches thick. Thus it is clear that they belonged to the subsequent stage of the fitting of a roof to the chamber. The holes that are shown in the floor are apparently connected with the construction, as they are not in the mid-line where pillars are likely. At the edge of chamber No. 2 is a cast of plaited palm-leaf matting on the mud mortar above this level, and the bricks are set back irregularly. This shows the mode of finishing off the roof of this tomb.
From the position of the tomb of Den-Setui, it is seen naturally to follow the building of the tombs of Zet and Merneit. It is surrounded by rows of small chambers for offerings, and for the burial of domestics. The king’s tomb appears to have contained a large number of tablets of ivory and ebony, for fragments of eighteen were found, and two others are known, making in all twenty tablets from this one tomb. The inscriptions on stone vases are, however, not more frequent than in previous reigns. This tomb appears to have been one of the most costly and sumptuous. The astonishing feature of this chamber is the granite pavement, such considerable use of granite being quite unknown until the step pyramid of Saqqâra early in the third dynasty. At the south-west corner is a strange annex. A stairway leads down from the west and then turns to the north. At the foot of the first flight of steps is a space for inserting planks and brickwork to close the chamber, like the blocking of the door of the tomb of Azab.1 This small chamber was therefore intended to be closed. Whether this chamber was for the burial of one of the royal family, or for the deposit of offerings, it is difficult to determine. Of the various rows of graves around the great tomb there is nothing to record in detail. An ebony tablet, presumably of the time of Den, found among the first dynasty tombs, represents a scene in which a king is dancing before Osiris, the god being seated in his shrine. This tablet is the earliest example of those pictorial records of a religious ceremony which, as we now know, was continued almost without change from the first dynasty to the thirty-third. It is interesting to note on this engraving that the king is represented with the hap and a short stick instead of the oar.
It should be noted also that the royal name, Setui, occurs in the lower part of the tablet, so that there is a strong presumption that the tablet is of the time of Den-Setui, and the presumption is almost a certainty when the tablet is compared with some sealings found in its vicinity. Mr. F. LI. Griffiths has written at length on this important inscription.*
He thinks that this tablet and two others somewhat similar were the brief annals of the time, and record the historic events and the names of government officials. He translates a portion of the inscription as “Opening the gates of foreign lands,” and in another part he reads, “The master comes, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” Moreover, he translates certain signs as “Sheikh of the Libyans,” and he identifies a place named Tny as This, or the capital of the nome in which Abydos lay.
Of this reign also is an ivory tablet finely polished, but blackened with burning, which has engraved upon it the oldest architectural drawing in the world.
The inscription on this precious fragment apparently refers to the great chiefs coming to the tomb of Setui, and a picture of a building in the middle of the inscription may be taken as representing on the left the tomb chamber of Den-Setui, with a slight mound over it. The upright strokes represent the steles outside the tombs, adjacent to which is the inclined stairway, while on the right is a diagram of the cemetery, with graves ar-ranged in rows around the tomb, with small steles standing up over the graves.
A small piece of still another ivory tablet gives an interesting portrait of Den-Setui. This king flourished about 4600 b. c, so that this is perhaps the oldest portrait that can be named and dated. It shows the double crown fully developed, and has an additional interest, inasmuch as the crown of Lower Egypt was apparently coloured red, while the crown of Upper Egypt was white in accordance with the practice that we know existed during the later historic period.
Among the many ivory objects found at Abydos is a small ivory panel from a box which seems to have contained the golden seal of judgment of King Den.
The engraving of this ivory panel is of the finest description, and bears evidence of the magnificent workmanship of the Egyptians 6,500 years ago. It will be seen that enough of the fragment has been preserved to include the cartouche of the monarch, and the snake at the side is the pictograph of judgment. Beneath is the hieroglyph for gold, and at the bottom is a sign which represents a seal cylinder* rolling over a piece of clay.
The tomb of Azab-Merpaba is a plain chamber, with rather sloping sides, about twenty-two feet long and fourteen feet wide. The surrounding wall is nearly five feet thick. The lesser and more irregular chamber on the north is of the same depth and construction, fourteen feet by nine. This lesser chamber had no remains of flooring; it contained many large sealings of jars, and seems to have been for all the funeral provision, like the eight chambers around the tomb of Merneit. Around this tomb is a circuit of small private tombs, leaving a gap on the southwest like that of Merneit, and an additional branch line has been added on at the north.