Transcriber’s Notes:
1) [.a] = dot above a
2) Spelling of Sneferu / Snefru kept as in the original.
3) Any mention of scale (e.g., ⅓ life-size) has been maintained as in the original - however, since the reproduction of images differs from the original, these are no longer accurate.

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.

[Pg 1]

1. It was at Mr. Somers Clarke’s suggestion that El Kab was chosen for last winter’s work on the Research Account. Mr. Clarke has been interested in this site for several years and has published findings on some of the XVIIIth dynasty tombs there. He wanted to investigate the smaller tombs and examine the large area within the town. So, along with his colleague, Mr. J. J. Tylor, he offered a significant donation to the funds, as long as El Kab was the chosen site. We also owe our gratitude to Mr. Jesse Howarth, who, like these gentlemen, provided support without which the excavations could not have taken place.

We got to El Kab on December 1st, and within four days, we had cleared out several of the unmarked tombs in the famous hill and turned them into a really comfortable house. Nothing in Egypt makes for a more pleasant living space than a rock tomb. In a place where the window and door are the same, and three sides plus the roof are solid rock, there are no drafts, and the temperature stays pretty stable day and night. We each had our own room, one for a dining room, and I had two more where I stored my forty workers. Most of them were men I had worked with before at Kuft and Naqada, since the locals at El Kab are few and not as strong physically, making their labor at two piastres a day more expensive than that of the skilled Kuftis at four. The working conditions were very pleasant, much better than I had experienced in Egypt before. There was no crowd of idle people or dealers’ spies hanging around the work site like there was at Kuft, and we weren’t worried about theft by workers as we were at Thebes. Surveying poles were left out for weeks, which in most villages would have been stolen the first night for firewood.

There was some delay in getting the necessary permission for digging; after two weeks of waiting, we finally received it and started working on the XIIth dynasty cemetery. By mid-March, the digging was gradually coming to a close, and we spent our time making maps and packing until we left at the beginning of April. We brought fifty-four boxes of pottery and other items back to England, which were exhibited in July at University College, and then distributed to various museums in Oxford, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Manchester, with the largest shares going to them. I need to acknowledge the considerable help we received both in Egypt and England. We owe Mr. Clarke, besides the financial support already mentioned, thanks for his assistance with the excavation, planning, drawing, etc., and for his endless hospitality. We are grateful to Miss A. A. Pirie, who joined us for the last two-thirds of the season, for the several colored drawings of tombs, etc., now at University College, as well as to her and my sister for their ongoing support with the various daily tasks of the dig, where their experience made them incredibly helpful, and which they cheerfully added to the challenges of desert housekeeping. In England, many friends assisted with unpacking, exhibiting, drawing plates, etc., especially Miss Griffith, Miss Murray, Mr. Herbert Thompson, and Dr. Walker. Few outside the small circle of diggers and their friends realize how much of the hard work in Egypt and England is taken off our shoulders by generous helpers who work without expecting anything in return.

2. The site of El Kab is quite large. Just clearing the area inside the town walls would require five times the funding we had available; plus, there was the hill with XVIIIth dynasty tombs, the cemeteries outside the walls, and the temples further out in the desert. We needed to carefully choose spots that would justify the effort we put into them. The most obvious place to search would be the sandstone hill where we were living, home to the well-known inscribed tombs of Paheri and Aahmes. But how likely is it to find inscribed tombs anywhere in Egypt besides Thebes? We know the tomb was left accessible for visits from relatives, and it must have always stayed open unless it got filled with sand or unless the quarrying of another tomb higher up dumped a bunch of debris on it. In the capital, tombs often went missing for long periods this way; in less crowded cemeteries, this kind of accident seems less likely to happen. Many signs in the existing tombs at El Kab indicate that earlier tombs were quarried away to make space for them. This seems to reduce the chances of discovering anything valuable from earlier periods; and if by some chance an inscribed tomb is still hidden among the rubble at the bottom of the hill, searching it thoroughly would take so long and cost so much that it will likely remain undiscovered.

3. The biggest landmark at El Kab is the town wall, which grabs the attention of anyone passing by on the river. It surrounds a large square of about 580 yards on each side; the walls are 40 feet thick and still reach a height of 20 feet in most places. The diagonal of the square runs roughly north to south, and the southwest wall runs parallel to the river. The southwest corner is gone; in fact, the river now flows over the spot where it used to be. There's evidence that the Nile has moved eastward at this location, but not significantly, within the last 2000 years, as some remnants of a landing stage, thought to be Roman, can still be seen just south of the town. About a quarter of the area within the walls is separated from the rest by a curved double wall, and only within this smaller area are there many signs of buildings. Here, earlier in the century, there was a large mound, but now the sebakhin have taken it all away, leaving us with a desolate landscape—one part marked by the red shards of broken pottery from all periods, discarded by the sebakh digger’s sieve, and another part white with salt that permeates the soil. A few large brick walls remain, along with the foundations of the temple, but no part of the superstructure. Outside this town, yet inside the large square of walls, the ground has a different character. There are no large masses of pottery, hardly any brick walls; in the lower areas, small parallel ridges in the soil indicate that farming has taken place there in recent years; for the rest, the ground is covered in pebbles, similar to the untouched desert, with fragments of pottery scattered throughout, clearly of early origin. These fragments were found most abundantly on two or three small rises, which we later discovered contained groups of tombs. Thus, on the day we arrived, we were faced with the first puzzle of El Kab. The majority of the enclosed area had never been inhabited, at least not by people living in houses and using pottery. So, what was the purpose of the massive walls? The north wall (strictly, the northwest, but referred to as north for convenience) can be crossed by walking up the large sand slope that leads to its top on both sides, driven up by the prevailing north wind. A similar, but much smaller, pile of sand has accumulated against the north side of the south wall. From the top of the north wall, you get a great view of the entire area. The town is located at the entrance of a wide valley, flanked by broken sandstone hills. An hour’s walk up this valley reveals the small square structure of Amenhotep III’s temple, the large isolated rock covered in graffiti, and, much closer, the small temple of Rameses. The low hill to the left, half a mile away, is the hill of tombs. The row of black dots sloping downwards to the east are the doorways of the tombs, which follow the line of solid rock. Further north is a rock that, from a distance, looks like a giant mushroom. This is a hill that only has its upper section left, resting on large pillars; the sides of the hill and all the inside except for these pillars have been quarried away, probably to provide stone for the temples of El Kab. The strip of cultivated land is quite narrow in this area, often less than 500 yards wide.

Immediately to the east of the walls, the ground has been disturbed, with small, even rises and dips; bits of XIIth dynasty pottery scattered across the surface indicated that this was the cemetery of the Middle Kingdom.

Note.—I stopped for five hours at Kafr-es-Zaiat on the train trip from Alexandria to Cairo to check out a site that might be the Serapeum of the Saite nome. On the map in the Description de l’Egypte, some ruins are marked as the village of El Naharieh, north of Kafr-es-Zaiat. When I spoke with the locals, I learned that ruins had been there thirty years ago, but now all the land they covered has been cultivated. Under the mats in the mosques, you can see some granite blocks from ancient Egyptian times, and I noticed Necho's cartouche two times. The village sheikh also had a beautiful lintel, used as a gate-post. He kindly moved it for me, and on it, I saw the name of the Serapeum of the Saite nome, Hat-biti, along with Necho's cartouche. (Cf. de Rougé, Géographie de la Basse Égypte, p. 22.)

THE OLDEST TOMBS.

4. The lower areas of the ground inside the enclosure had been extensively looted, mainly by the locals of El Kab during their farming. We discovered many small graves about 6 feet long, 2 feet wide, and waist deep, but they contained no bones, and there was so little pottery in them that it took a while to figure out their time period. However, in the two low mounds to the north and the larger one in the south, various types of graves quickly surfaced. One group was clearly more recent than the others. Their surrounding walls, within which several burials were found, formed right angles with the main wall of the town and cut through the older graves (mastabas), which, although parallel to each other, were tilted relative to the town walls. These earlier tombs were of several types: (1) mastabas with square shafts; (2) mastabas with sloping "stairways," both made of crude brick; (3) burials in the large earthenware pots our workers refer to as a majūr; and (4) burials of a well-known type that has been labeled New Race, Libyan, Neolithic, etc., characterized by the curled-up position of the body with the head towards the south, and featuring a distinct variety of pottery, paint slabs, beads, etc. The mastabas were found both inside and outside of the town walls, with one group (Pl. XXIII) located quite close to them. On three diorite bowls discovered in these graves (one inside the walls, the others outside), the name of Sneferu appeared. Since this is the only king's name found in any of these tombs, it seems likely that most of them date back to Sneferu's reign, or the period right after. And the town walls, having been built through the Old Kingdom cemetery, are, of course, newer.

About thirteen “stairway” tombs and thirty-seven mastabas were examined. The exact number can't be determined because when the walls of the mastaba are completely stripped away, only the well remains, making it hard to confirm if the grave ever had the mastaba structure. There were about fifty-three smaller graves that provided any evidence, but many more, based on their location, orientation, and size, could be linked to the early period but were either completely empty or contained just a few pieces of pottery.

5. The most important mastaba was that of Ka-mena (Pl. XXIII). It is part of a group we discovered beneath the large mound of sand on the north side of the wall. Pl. VII provides two views of this group of tombs during the excavation process. The low walls are reduced near the end of the sand slope to the height of a single brick; in the center, they stand a meter high, and they decrease again towards the end beneath the large wall. They are constructed with recessed panels and were originally plastered and painted white. A boundary wall surrounds the entire tomb. The two small closed chambers at the end of the last passage (similar to those in the tomb of Nefer-shem-em, which contained his two statues) were empty, but a few fragments of the legs of a small sandstone statue were found nearby. On the east wall itself, there are two niches, and in and around them were discovered many small pieces of worked limestone, some inscribed. These are copied in Pl. XVIII, 49-53 and 55. The face in 49 still had a hint of green paint on the cheek, which is an important piece of evidence for dating the Naqada tombs, whose occupants also used this method of adornment. The pieces, 53 and 54, appear to be parts of a stela; 50 and 55 are from the bases of limestone statues.

The inscriptions provide us with Ka-mena's name and depict him as a close associate of the king and a priest.

The rooms inside the mastaba, which were left empty on the plan, were found filled with brick clay; this was cleared out, but nothing except a piece of IVth dynasty pottery was discovered. The clay was likely added this way to save on bricks; the cross walls would only keep the loose earth from falling into the well in the center. The well was about 15 feet deep and filled with thick, damp clay, with the bottom being very close to the water level, even in January. The chamber was located to the south, sealed by a rough-hewn slab of sandstone three inches thick. It’s worth noting that the sandstone in the area breaks naturally into very flat plates, making it easy to find slabs that need very little dressing for building; such pieces were found in many of the early tombs. Once this slab was removed, the chamber was found to be packed with very tough clay, most of which had to be cut away with a knife because a light blow with an adze does nothing in such a hard substance, and a heavy blow might damage some valuable object before it can be seen. The entire chamber was lined with flat sandstone blocks, but the thin roof slabs had collapsed due to the pressure of the earth above. The construction style was irregular (v. Pl. I), with the blocks being fitted together but not squared off. The body was positioned on the west side, with the head facing north; no remains of a coffin were found, and the bones had turned to a white paste, discernible only by scraping sections with a knife through mud and bone. Beneath the whole body was a bed of white sand. Near the entrance were six vases (XI, 12), resembling a late Neolithic form commonly found at Naqada, and across from the middle of the body was a group of significant objects. These included a model granary made of rough red pottery (Pl. VI), each small storehouse having an opening at the top, sealed with a stopper; another similar granary in fragments, three vertical alabaster jars, an alabaster circular table, and a collection of bowls and model tools shown in __A_TAG_PLACEHOLDER_0__. These last items consist of—

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

(2.) A bowl made of porphyry, a flat bowl crafted from a beautiful light-colored and translucent diorite, and a flat dish made from a darker type of the same stone. This last piece is engraved with the royal name of Snefru, Neb Maat, featuring the chisel-like symbol of the maat on the curved side of the sickle, and the door-frame of the name topped with a hawk.

(3.) A set of model tools, including an axe, knife, adzes, and chisels, is outlined again on Pl. XVIII, 56-65. These have been analyzed by Dr. Gladstone, who writes as follows:—

“The largest fragment gave—

Percentage.
Copper 98.4
Arsenic 0.3
Iron 0.2
Bismuth track
Lead track
Antimony track?
Oxygen as copper(I) oxide trace

It is, of course, mainly copper, with the tiny amounts of other elements likely due to impurities in the ore. The complete lack of tin is the most significant aspect.

6. The small mastaba west of Ka-mena’s has a simpler design. The brickwork might have been recessed, although this isn't certain since the walls are only two bricks high, and the panelling in the other mastabas doesn't go that close to the ground. There is no surrounding wall, but there is a passage on the east side with low cross walls that I don't understand. The chamber at the bottom of the well is to the south; it wasn't sealed with a stone. Near the opening, to the east, there was a small coffin made of red pottery; its size indicates it belonged to a child buried in a curled-up position. Between the coffin and the side of the chamber was a diorite bowl; south of this were two upright jars and a circular table, all made of alabaster. On the west side of the chamber lay the body, on its left side, with the head facing north; the arms and legs were sharply bent, with the heels pulled close to the hips.

7. To the west of this is the compound mastaba labeled C on the plan. The southern half was constructed after the northern half, which has its paneling visible inside the first well beyond the cross wall. The areas marked 1, 3, and 6 are just chambers filled with clay; 2, 4, and 5 are all tomb wells.

The well (4) was unique because its chamber was to the west instead of the south. It was 5.3 meters deep, and scattered throughout the earth within 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 round table, a diorite bowl, pieces of malachite, a small river shell filled with white paint, and one of the pots (XI, 12) similar to those in Ka-mena’s tomb.

At the bottom of the next well (5) was one of the large hemispherical pots (majūrs) that were used as coffins (XX, 5). It measured 60 cm in diameter but was empty and turned upside down. At the entrance of the chamber was a stone slab two meters high, one side of which was significantly damaged. The chamber was, like all these tombs, filled with thick mud, and scattered throughout this mud, or on the floor, were the following items: a diorite bowl of the typical shape, which held a small vase of alabaster turned upside down over a pile of green paint (malachite), a smaller bowl also made of diorite, an alabaster table flipped over, and two more alabaster containers.

Below these lay what used to be a very interesting box. The pattern of the lid is shown in Pl. VIII, 2. It's made of small flat strips of ivory, 1 mm thick, and pieces of blue and black glaze; these had apparently been glued onto a wooden base, but that had completely rotted away, leaving just the thin layer of decoration within the heavy clay. After sufficiently clearing it to understand its nature and size, we slid a piece of tinplate underneath it and lifted out the entire lump of earth surrounding it. [Pg 5] Inside the house, we could take our time scraping away the soil from one side and pouring melted beeswax in its place, then flipping it over to do the same on the other side. In this way, a large piece was taken to England encased in wax. This wax was later removed and replaced with plaster of Paris on the inside. The box measured about 12 inches long, 8 inches wide, and 5 inches high. It had been heavily crushed, and the sides couldn’t be salvaged. The contents included a small porphyry bowl (X, 44), a shell, and some green paint.

8. The mastabas C, Ca, and D were enclosed by the same boundary wall. C seems to be the earliest, followed by Ca, and then D. The inner half of the passage between C and D is lined with stone; at the end, sealed off in a small chamber, were the two statues of Nefer-shem-em, indicating that tomb D belonged to him. The statue to the west was made of sandstone (Pl. III), depicted as a standing figure, one-third life-size; the head was missing, with only a few fragments found below the statue. The surface of the stone had been covered with a smooth layer of plaster, tinted with haematite, of which some traces still remained; the skirt was painted white.

The other limestone statue depicts Nefer-shem-em seated. The head is in good condition, and the entire statue is a solid example of Old Kingdom work, although it’s not the most refined style and has suffered significant damage from salt. It does not display the “Schminkstriche.” The inscriptions carved on the base of the standing figure and on the right side of the chair of the seated one are the same:—

Suten rekh se hez neter hon Nefer-shem-em.

(Number in Giza Catalogue, 650.)

The mastaba D of Nefer-shem-em is a typical structure, featuring two niches on the east side, two chambers filled with brick dust, and a central well. This well was filled with bodies, carelessly thrown in every twisted position. The locations of twenty-three skulls and bodies were recorded, and since there was no apparent plan or organization, the rest were left for the workers to remove. A scarab belonging to Amen-ankh-as, found in one of the bodies on the upper level, seems to indicate that this mass burial dates back to the late XVIIIth dynasty.

9. The next mastaba (E) has an interesting shape; the S. niche is positioned over one of the wells instead of being on the outer wall. We dug out both wells until we hit water. From one, we recovered pieces of a small pottery sarcophagus.

The small mastaba (301) closer to the town wall was more interesting. In its well, fragments of the rough early pottery (Pl. XII), pieces of the short type of earthenware coffin, and a majūr (XX, 5) were found, along with a fragment of a diorite bowl that had Sneferu's name roughly scratched on it, and a small (¾-inch) black stone cylinder (XX, 32). This type is already fairly well known from collected specimens (there are twenty-one in the Edwards Collection) and is believed to be early, but it hasn't been discovered by a European before. The engraving depicts a figure seated at a table and wearing a large wig.

10. The next mastaba (No. 288) was located in the town. Just south of the tomb passage, as if cast aside from it, there were a large number of rough pottery pots shaped like those shown at the top of Pl. XII. These pots were also discovered in the pathways between mastabas, and fragments of them were found scattered in large quantities over the tombs, especially those of the “stairway” type. This indicates that the rough pottery wasn't used in the burial, but rather for the offerings brought by family members to the tombs. They were likely placed opposite the niches, and when they became too numerous to keep, they were discarded over the tomb wall. Several hundred of these pots were found piled up behind two mastabas to the north of the wall (Pl. VII, C, D).

The tomb had been looted. Pieces of one of the large, round bowl coffins (XX, 5) were scattered throughout the shaft, and the large slab that sealed the entrance was tossed at the bottom of the well. The chamber was empty, but beneath the flat stone, fragments of a slate dish, an alabaster table, and four diorite bowls were discovered. Of one of these bowls, the largest I've seen (Pl. II, 1), more than two-thirds of the pieces were intact; it was engraved with clear, deep characters, suten biti Sneferu, the king’s name written without the cartouche. This tomb also contained one of the rough pottery bars that I've found in both Old Kingdom and Neolithic tombs, their purpose still unclear. When complete, they measured about 2 feet 6 inches long and 4 inches thick; one side is flat, while the other is rounded. The walls of one Neolithic tomb at Ballas were lined with such bars. In another tomb, the body was protected by a large inverted dish resting on several of these bars; often, fragments of two or three were found in a tomb. Perhaps they were used as supports for the coffin.

[Pg 6] In tomb No. 312, which was likely a mastaba, although the walls were not seen, the well was only 2 meters deep. The chamber was on the west side and was just big enough to hold the pottery coffin and a few pots. The coffin was the short type (3 feet long); the body was lying on its left side, curled up, with the head pointing north and the face east. One bone from the foot was found outside the coffin at the foot end, along with a small diorite bowl, part of another limestone bowl, shell and horn bracelets, an ivory hairpin, and a shell containing green paint. A large number of coarse pots were scattered throughout the earth in the tomb-shaft (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 was located to the west of the well, 2 meters above the bottom of it and 3.7 meters from the top. The bones were scattered and broken, but since the chamber was so small, the burial must have been a contracted one. There was a diorite bowl (11 inches in diameter), a vertical alabaster jar, a smaller jar containing green paint, and a piece of a bowl made from a good red clay, similar in shape to the bronze bowl found in Ka-mena’s tomb.

No. 315 included a piece of sculpture (XVIII, 55). No. 319 had the usual set of alabaster table and both small and large diorite bowls, along with two long egg-shaped pots (XI, 12), a vase with a spout (Pl. XII, 55), and one of the open red pottery bowls, similar to No. 318, and Ka-mena (Pl. XII, 51).

Next comes a group of tombs with square wells and chambers sealed by large stone blocks, which are probably mastabas, even though the panelled brickwork wasn't found.

No. 42. A large square well, 200 meters north of the town wall. Scattered in the soil were pieces of various common coarse types of IVth dynasty pottery, as well as bowl-shaped coffins (XX, 5). Half of an ivory cylinder (XX, 33) and a small black cylinder (XX, 31), with an inscription that doesn’t seem to be Egyptian, were found among them; there was also a small slate dish and the egg-shaped pot (XII, 49).

No. 88, located in the town, was a well 2 meters deep. The chamber was sealed off by a large stone (1.00 m × 0.65 m), but an entrance had been made behind it. Inside the chamber were four stone bowls of the shapes commonly found together (X, 22, 39, 44, 48), and in the shaft were part of a majūr, along with twenty-five coarse pots (nineteen of XII, 23, two of 37, four of 31).

No. 101. A well, 3 meters deep, with a chamber to the south, contained, along with the usual coarse pottery, the less common shape XII, 26, and also some fragments of the later Neolithic large vases (Naqada, XL, 40 or 46). The necks of these same vases were found in No. 150 with the coarse pottery, as well as one of the yellow clay dolls, about 15 cm long, depicting a woman with very long legs and a large square-ended wig. These dolls are quite recognizable and were believed to be from the Middle Kingdom. There was no indication of a secondary burial in this tomb, so it's possible that the dolls date back to the Old Kingdom.

No. 185. At 2.10 meters below the surface were the remains of a small pottery cist, a majūr (complete), beneath which lay the body in a curled position, facing south, along with a stone bowl, an ivory comb, and a few beads, felspar discs, and shell-shaped beads made of serpentine, seemingly from the Neolithic period. Forty cm lower, there were some cylindrical beads in green glaze and shells that showed signs of green paint. Above this, the earth was scattered with examples of the regular series of coarse pots (XII, 23, 31, 35, 45).

No. 187, a well 3 meters deep, contained only an inverted pottery cist, inside which was a body lying on the left side, with the head facing north.

No. 191, a well 2.50 meters deep, was unusual in that it didn’t have a chamber; the body was shielded from the earth above by a double roof of sandstone slabs, resting on other slabs at the sides. The body was sharply bent up, with the knees almost in line with the mouth; it was lying on its left side with the head facing south. At the head was an alabaster vase (X, 31) in a late Neolithic style. This tomb, aside from its remarkable depth, could be categorized among the Neolithic burials.

In No. 192, the body was in an unusual position. While the arms were fully extended and the thighs aligned with the body, the knees were bent so sharply that the heels and hips were touching. The head was facing north, and the face was turned east.

No. 204 was another square well with a chamber below, which had been sealed off by a thin brick wall; it contained a square, flat slate palette, pieces of a slate dish, and three pots shaped like those from the Neolithic period (XI, 12).

No. 228 was a square well near a group of stairway tombs. Inside it were two burials, the first in a pottery cist placed in one corner of the well at 1.5 meters from the surface. The body was curled up, with the head facing north; the only item buried with the body was a shell near the hips. Below this cist was another [Pg 7] body in a wooden box painted white. This body was also in a tightly contracted Neolithic position, with hands and knees in front of the face; the head faced north, and the body lay on its left side. Even lower in the well were pots of coarse Old Kingdom types. Both of these bodies are presumably secondary burials.

No. 231 contained three pots of Old Kingdom types (XII, 23, 54, 31), along with pieces of a large majūr (XX, 5), and one shard of a thin black pottery that has a smooth inside and is decorated on the outside with rows of pricked marks. This cannot be differentiated from some fragments found in the Neolithic cemetery at Ballas.

No. 280, a well north of the wall, sank below water level, but in the fill, they found the usual collection of rough pots (XII, 31, 36, 35, 33).

In 197, the rough pottery appeared alongside pieces of malachite, and in 233, there was a vertical alabaster vase and fragments of a large vase that matched a prominent late Neolithic style.

11. Next, we look at the other large category of tombs, those accessed by stairways. These may all have been mastabas. The distinctive massive brick walls are still visible in several cases, with at least one preserving the recessed panel work and niches. However, it’s possible that these stairway tombs are older than the mastabas that have square wells, so it’s better not to group them together. You can see the appearance of these tombs in Miss Murray’s black and white reproduction of two sketches by Miss Pirie (Pl. __A_TAG_PLACEHOLDER_0__).

The first view shows the stairway from below, looking north; in the other view, you’re supposed to be looking south at the vertical end of the shaft, the tomb entrance, and the stone door.

All these tombs were robbed, except possibly one. This (St. 2) was the smallest tomb of its kind that I’ve seen. The stairs had just a couple of roughly cut steps; the total depth was only 1 meter, and even though a large stone slab served as a door to the burial chamber, a robber only needed to pierce 20 cm of soil to enter the chamber through the roof. The chamber, which was about one square meter, was filled with thick, damp clay. The bones had decayed so much that only a few parts could be identified, but distinctive fragments of the skull, the hip ends of two femurs, a tibia, a radius, and an ulna showed that the body had been laid on its left side with the head facing north. In front of the face was an ivory cup (shape X, 44). Below the body was some red dust with white spots in it, probably the remains of a wooden coffin that had been painted white.

In and under the white paste, which was all that remained of the hand's bones, were two nuggets of gold (one 18 dwts. = 28 grams) and a handful of barrel-shaped carnelian beads mixed with very small gold beads. By gently scraping away the earth, it was possible to see that the gold beads had been strung together to create bands 5 or 6 mm wide, alternating with bands of carnelian. A gold bar, 2 cm long, with five holes, clearly served to hold the strings on which the beads were threaded. There was also a bracelet made of a single thick gold wire. The total weight of gold was about 4 oz. (125 grams). In the NW corner of the tomb, behind the head, were five ivory vessels: two very coarse vertical jars (14 and 19 cm), two bowls (23 and 26 cm in diameter), one with a spout (X, 26), and a bowl with a spreading shape similar to Ka-mena’s bronze (XII, 51); there was also a small double vase made of limestone (X, 15). A small steatite plaque inscribed with the name Neb.ra was said by the workers to have come from this tomb, and there is no reason to doubt them; however, I did not actually see it in place. The name Neb.ra is one of the three Ka names on the shoulder of the famous archaic statue No. I at Giza, and the name on the plaque may possibly be the same, though it is not written within the square Ka frame.

In the side of the tomb were two small balls made of limestone and one made of carnelian, shaped and sized like playing marbles, along with some pieces of malachite. By the door were some chips from diorite bowls. The marbles were clearly part of a game set (cf. Naqada, Pl. 7), and since the set was incomplete and the stone bowls were broken, it suggests, despite the presence of the gold nuggets, that the tomb had been partially looted. The early thieves might have overlooked the gold because the moist, tough clay conceals small objects quite effectively; it was only the weight of two small lumps of clay that revealed to me the presence of the nuggets inside.

The amount of gold left in such a small tomb shows how wealthy the larger burials must have been and how strong the temptation to steal from them was.

In Stairway 1, the outlines of the surrounding brickwork were outlined, but the walls weren't tall enough to reveal the recessed panels that likely used to be there.

In Stairway 6, a large tomb, we discovered rough pottery shapes (XII, 23, 35), as well as vertical alabaster jars, pieces of an alabaster table, and bowls, ivory hairpins, and a rectangular slate palette with two stone rubbers. This was one of the later styles from Naqada. We also found a large pot (of the shape XII, 49, but bigger), similar to the later pottery of the New Race.

Stairway 5 belongs to this group of tombs, but it stands out from the usual type in three ways. It was much larger, measuring 41 meters long by 20 wide; instead of an open stairway, it had a small shaft that opened into a long inclined plane leading down to the burial chamber; the chamber itself was also quite large (7 m square). The recessed brickwork remained on the west side, and the passage leading to the niche on the east side can still be seen. Clearing this tomb was a tedious job for six men over three weeks, and nothing significant was discovered. A pot (X, 29), found inside the large chamber, indicated that it had been entered during the XVIIIth dynasty, and three alabaster vases (28 cm high) were likely canopic jars from a later burial. This tomb is a noticeable feature for anyone looking north from the El Kab wall and resembles a natural mound.

Another stairway tomb was notable for the large number of rough limestone and alabaster vertical jars stacked at the bottom of the stairs. There were 150 of these, but nothing else in the tomb, except for a few fragments from a brown incised bowl (XX, 1), somewhat similar to the rare incised pottery discovered at Naqada.

Staircase 8 had a collection of rough pottery and a small coarse saucer (XII, 31, 44), a rustic handmade vase (XII, 23), pieces of large water jars made from better quality material, and two alabaster bowls—one with sharp edges (XI, 33) and the other with a typical shape that narrows at the top (XI, 44). Additionally, there were two flat, saucer-like mud jar seals.

In Stairway 9, the walls of the shaft were covered in mud. The stone door of the burial chamber was still intact, as the robbers apparently found it easier to break in through the softer earth above the large slab. We often traced their entry point and discovered that they dug their shafts at the deep end of the stairway, never clearing the long flight of steps. This suggests that the robberies happened while this burial method was still remembered. This tomb held fragments of one of the large round pots used as coffins (majūrs), along with pieces of a large jar made of polished red clay, the polished lines of which run lengthwise; this clay cannot be distinguished from the Libyan style. There was also a vertical jar made of veined marble, the horizontally-pierced handle of a typical Libyan stone vase, an alabaster bowl, and a vase (X, 43), along with a couple of coarse pottery bowls from the IVth dynasty period (XII, 37).

Stairway 10 had only the rough pottery, but the standard jars (XII, 23) had a series of simple markings made before they were fired (XVIII, 21-4, and a triangle).

Stairway 12 had been robbed, but the sandstone door hadn't been disturbed. The body was placed in a wooden box (80 cm long), which nearly filled the chamber. The wood was gone, but the thin layers of paint still remained. The body was lying on its left side, curled up, with the head facing north. A small diorite bowl was positioned near the head of the coffin, and a regular alabaster vase was in the dirt above it. Around the arm bones were short barrel-shaped carnelian beads.

No. 226 was unique in terms of the entrance to the tomb chamber. When you went down the stairway, you ended up at the bottom of a large well. On the east side, and not visible from the stairway, there was a big door. In the fill, there was a good flint knife of the typical early style, with a small handle, but it was much less refined compared to the finer Neolithic pieces.

The contents of this series of tombs are described in detail to show that the same grouping of objects appears repeatedly, allowing them to be confidently attributed to the original burials. If only one tomb had been examined, there would be no proof that any of its objects were from the same period. It can be observed that the contents of the stairway tombs are very similar to those of the mastabas with square wells, but objects typical of Neolithic tombs—like green paint, double vases, and marbles—are more common in the stairway tombs. This suggests that the stairway tombs at El Kab are older than the mastabas with square wells.

12. Next, we can describe the small graves, typically about 3-4 feet deep, where there isn’t a burial chamber; instead, the body is placed directly in the shaft or open grave. These were mostly found inside the fort of El Kab, although a few were located outside the walls. Some were clearly of the Neolithic type, but from the later period where fine black and red pottery isn't present. Of the earlier type, only one small group of twenty graves was found; these were well outside the town, on the west side of the railway, and were so thoroughly excavated that only a handful of pottery fragments remained to indicate their true nature. However, many examples of the later type were found, and even more empty graves, which, based on their size and position, seemed to belong to the same category.

This type is marked by the curled position of the body, the upright jars with cord patterns, the square slate palettes, the flat alabaster dishes, and four types of alabaster vases (X, 22, 44, 48, 31), two of which are often also found in the mastabas. The first group discovered was inside an elongated brick building that appeared red from a distance, the color due to the numerous broken pots from the Old Kingdom (XII, 20, 23) scattered throughout. The ground within its walls was primarily made up of these pots, with an unbroken layer two feet thick. Beneath this, we found the Neolithic tombs. The walls were made of small bricks that we quickly learned to associate with the Old Kingdom work in El Kab. It's unlikely that the walls were related to the tombs, as they were not exactly parallel to each other, and there were more tombs outside these walls. However, it is significant to note that a thick layer of coarse pottery from the Old Kingdom lies above the Neolithic tombs here. It’s possible that the pottery was discarded by farmers on this mound, but the odds against that seemed quite strong to me. In one of these tombs (L, 2), the body was found intact, lying on the left side, with the head facing south. At the head end were a wavy-handled pot of a late type (XI, 3), two upright jars (like XI, 5) with cord patterns, a square slate palette, and above these a pot (XI, 9) decorated with wavy red lines; there was also an alabaster cup (X, 38) containing six finger bones. At the opposite end were a bowl and two vases of recognizable shapes.

The centers of the graves were mostly empty, and bones were seldom found; the stone bowls, which made up the majority of the discoveries, were located at the north and south ends. It doesn't seem worth it to copy the full description of each of these small tombs from the notebooks, as they have been so thoroughly looted and disturbed that the arrangement of the various objects in the tomb holds no specific significance. However, it might be useful to provide a brief list of the items found (v. Pl. XXVII). Each of the tombs is about 1.50 m to 2.00 m long, 0.90 m wide, and 1.50 m deep.

In one tomb (No. 237), the body was placed in a wooden box (length not visible, 40 cm wide, wood 3 cm thick), in a curled position, with the head facing south. However, the bones were misplaced, and the pottery was found at different levels, not all resting on the floor of the tomb. There were signs of matting at the north end.

No. 241 was lined with four stone slabs, and another slab nearby had been used as a roof. In the filling was a head of some animal (possibly an antelope) made of the rough red pottery from the early period.

No. 206 had a piece of a square Neolithic palette, an alabaster bowl with a spout (X, 19), a taller bowl, also made of alabaster (X, 30), and a variety of beads—felspar discs, long cylinders of copper (?), and steatite.

13. The only untouched small tomb (No. 166) was located to the north of the town. The layout of this tomb is shown in Pl. I, 7, and the items are depicted in collotype in Pl. II, 2. The tomb was carved into the hard black mud that makes up the ground north of the wall, reaching a depth of 0.9 meters. The northern half contained a large inverted hemispherical bowl (majūr XX, 5); even though it was upside down, it was completely full of thick black mud that encased the bones of the deceased. The head was positioned to the north with the face facing east, and the body was contracted. To the south lay a tall alabaster jar on its side, and at the end of the tomb were a squat alabaster jar, a smaller jar of the same style, and two pots (XI, 7, 8) made of a smooth pink material with red lines and dots painted on it. The smaller jar actually serves as a lid and has a hole at the top for hanging. Between the majūr and the side of the tomb were some pieces of ivory (1 inch by ³⁄₁₆ inch), likely the veneer from a box similar to that in Pl. VIII, 2. From the mud inside the decorated pot, the following small items were recovered: two ivory hairpins, three bracelets, a disc of ivory with a grooved edge, a polished brown pebble, a small alabaster cup (X, 44), two shells both stained green inside, along with beads made of ivory, green felspar, gold, carnelian, blue frit, and serpentine, and, most importantly, an inscribed cylinder made of translucent steatite. The inscription [Pg 10] found in Pl. XX, 29, might represent a name combined with that of a king, the latter being enclosed in a cartouche. If this reads ka-ra, it could possibly refer to En-ka-ra of the VIIIth dynasty (though I doubt it), or, as Professor Sayce suggests, Manetho’s χαιρησ of the IInd. The first column seems to provide the Hor.nub name of the king as Nefer, or Nefer-Ka.

The beads are mostly from recognized Neolithic types; one type stands out, a blue frit cylinder with gold caps on the ends. It’s worth mentioning here the other instances of burial under the large hemispherical pots or majūrs.

Two (No. 186) were found, each in a small hole west of Ka-mena’s mastaba; the first lay with its mouth facing up and contained the badly decayed bones of a child; the second was turned upside down and contained no bones, but a bowl made of quite rough red pottery, two very rough IV dynasty saucers, and a typical pot from the same period. Another majūr was found at the bottom of a well in one of the large groups of mastabas that have already been described.

Another (No. 249) was at the bottom of a long open grave (3.70 m.) containing two burials in pottery cists. The arrangement of the bones in it was unclear.

Another (in a well 1.5 m. deep) contained a sharp-edged bowl (XII, 53), made on a wheel, and covered with a layer of haematite. This was positioned above the skeleton, which was lying on its right side, curled up, with its knees in front of its face, head pointing north; beneath the body were traces of wood; inside the bowl was a short cow’s (?) horn.

Near this was another small well (1.30 m. deep), and at the bottom of it, a small majūr, where the position of the bones could only be partially seen. The head faced north, the body lay on its back, with the thighs spread wide, and one hand near the hips.

Another burial was in a small hole covered by a flat stone. Two shells were under the left arm. No head was found. The shoulders were to the east, arms pointing downwards, forearms facing down; the legs were bent, with the knees raised and south of the spine. The last three burials were close to the large group of mastabas.

A significantly disturbed group of majūr burials (178) is important because it provides a dated object along with one of these majūrs, the copper (?) cylinder of User-kaf (Pl. __A_TAG_PLACEHOLDER_0__, 30). These majūrs were likely within the area of a mastaba, but there was so little brickwork left that it was impossible to determine whether the mastaba was built over the graves containing the majūrs or if the graves cut through the brickwork of the mastaba. On the floor of the square well, there was a fragment of a flint bracelet, along with some pieces of green felspar, alabaster, and malachite. The filling contained fragments of Old Kingdom pottery, a broken pottery cist, and some rough pottery bars. In the small chamber to the south, there were three alabaster vessels of typical shapes (X, 16 and 44), and a skeleton that was contracted and lying on its left side. This well likely belonged to the mastaba, of which the few patches of brickwork nearby were the remains. Just to the south of it was the irregular grave where the cylinder was found. Close to the surface lay two skeletons and a majūr, with the pot to the north; the two skeletons, both contracted and with their heads facing north, were facing each other. Below these was another skeleton, lying on its right side with its head to the east; beneath it, to the west, lay yet another skeleton, the skull of which was face down, with the body aligned north and south. This was the only skull that could be removed unbroken; it was very fragile, and despite careful packing, it broke before it reached England. Below this were parts of two more skeletons, and there was another in the large majūr; further down, leaning against the south-west corner at the bottom of the grave, was a sandstone slab, behind which was another contracted burial; the skeleton was on its left side, with its head to the north. The cylinder was beneath the first pair of skeletons. Other items in the tomb included a IVth dynasty pot (35), an ivory comb and spatula, a shell, and some green paint. This grave had clearly been somewhat disturbed, and it’s possible that the cylinder and the burials are not contemporaneous, but the simplest explanation is that they are, and that the grave was cut through the earlier mastaba. When I was clearing this tomb, Mr. (now Sir William) Richmond was sitting on the edge watching me, and we were both struck by the unusual shape of the unbroken skull, with the strong projection of the cheekbones reminding us of the Mongol type. No significant weight can be given to this observation, as measurements of the skull could not be taken, but I mention it to emphasize the importance of preserving any unbroken skeleton found in a majūr. The early date of these burials is hardly in doubt, but it has not yet been determined whether they belonged to the same race as the ordinary Neolithic graves, with the majūr being a cheaper substitute for the wooden roofs of earlier times, or if they belonged to some other element within the population, as suggested by the presence of the two illegible black cylinders.

The burials in pottery cists, not mentioned before, can now be discussed. These cists were discovered at Ballas, both in “stairway” tombs and in open Neolithic graves. At El Kab, they have already been noted as appearing in mastaba wells. The cists are short coffins, about 3 feet long, made of a rough and porous red pottery, and they typically do not have lids.

In one case (174), the burial chamber was found between walls and under a roof made of sandstone blocks. The skeleton, which belonged to a young person since the epiphyses weren't fused, was lying on its left side, facing east, with the head pointing north. A small shell with pieces of malachite was placed in front of the face. In another case, the burial chamber was at the bottom of a square well, again with the body on its left side, head to the north, and the knees pulled up to the face; the left elbow was positioned next to the left hand in front of the face, while the right arm rested over the head. There was a bit of decayed linen cloth in the chamber, and near the hips, there was a shell.

In tomb No. 249, a majūr and two cists were found at the sloping bottom of a long (3.70 m) well; the majūr was at the southern end, which was 60 cm lower than the northern end. In both cists, the body was positioned similarly to those in the two previously mentioned graves; one of them held a sharp-edged shallow bowl made of red pottery.

Another cist (316) was found at the bottom of a shallow well near the large group of mastabas (1.50 m by 1.10 m by 1.60 m deep). The sides of the cist were damaged, and many of the bones were disturbed, but part of the spinal column and the legs were enough to indicate that the body had been positioned with the head facing north, lying on its right side.

No. 312 has already been mentioned among the mastabas. The coffin was placed in a small chamber, with the body lying on its left side, head facing north.

DATE OF THE “NEW RACE” REMAINS.

14. The biggest fascination of El Kab was the insight it provided into the same civilization that had been revealed two years earlier at the cemeteries of Naqada and Ballas. There, we had studied 3,000 graves of a type that had never been seen before, and they were as different from the graves of historic Egyptians as if they came from China or Peru. The most noticeable feature of these burials was the way the body was positioned, always lying in a curled-up posture with the head facing south, never fully stretched out like in all other Egyptian burials. All the grave goods—beads, slate palettes, green paint, ashes, flint knives, and pottery—were of new types and didn't include any of the mirrors, ushabtis, scarabs, or any of the usual items found in ordinary tombs. Hieroglyphic inscriptions were also missing. The findings from the excavations were published in "Naqada and Ballas," and the main conclusions presented there indicated that these graves belonged to a foreign race, different from the Egyptians of the dynastic periods in physical characteristics and lifestyle; they were likely a white race similar to the modern non-Semitic people of North Africa; and, furthermore, that they invaded Egypt at the end of the Old Kingdom and were subsequently expelled by the growing power of the Xth and XIth dynasties.

[These people were initially referred to by Dr. Petrie as “the New Race,” but they have been given other names. M. de Morgan, in his Ethnographic Préhistorique, attributed this class of monuments to the Neolithic period and called the men with contracted burials “les indigènes.” The name “Libyans” has also gained some popularity; it highlights the clear racial distinction between this group and the historic Egyptians, and may serve as a general term for the people with contracted burials until a clearer distinction than we can currently make is established between (a) the Neolithic period before the arrival of the dynastic Egyptians; (b) the time between the arrival of the Egyptians and the unification of the kingdom under Menes; and (c) the first three dynasties.]

15. The conclusion that these people were different from the Egyptians hasn't been widely contested, but the dating mentioned above has faced opposition. The evidence from El Kab convinced me that we were mistaken and that M. de Morgan was correct in attributing most of this civilization to the praedynastic period. The impressive discoveries by M. Amélineau at Abydos and those by M. de Morgan at Naqada provide strong proof for this dating; however, the more fragmented evidence from El Kab, which led me to the same conclusion independently, may still hold some interest.

M. Amélineau’s excavations at Abydos started at the end of 1896—the winter after our Naqada campaign—and [Pg 12] many of the items he discovered are already displayed at Giza, some are in Paris, and a few have made their way to England. Among them are several pots and stone bowls clearly from the late Neolithic period, along with various objects that were not found at Naqada, including stelae, inscribed limestone scarabs, and clay seals stamped with the Ka names of kings. The long pots that these inscribed clay seals still fit onto are similar to a type previously found at Ballas, which indicates a connection between the Ka names and the contracted burials.

This year, Sethe’s important paper (A. Z. XXXV, 1) identifying three of Amélineau’s names with known kings of the 1st and 2nd dynasties has added new clarity to the entire issue, but, of course, we didn’t know that at El Kab. However, Amélineau’s linking of Libyan pottery with inscriptions in an archaic style, which would likely be dated long before the 4th dynasty, made our later dating of the pottery unlikely and required a re-evaluation of the evidence. The critical case at Ballas was the secondary burial of a Libyan found in one of a group of stairway mastabas. The mastabas were thought to be from the 4th dynasty because the pottery fragments and alabaster bowls found within them were similar to 4th dynasty objects from the cemetery of Medum.

16. We now believe that the dating of the alabaster was a bit too late, but the burial definitely showed that one Libyan died after an early Old Kingdom tomb had already been looted and left open, making it easy to bury someone. Not only was this intrusive burial discovered in one stairway tomb; green paint and stone vases with handles pierced horizontally were found in others of the same group. These Libyan remains were also seen as signs of secondary burials, but when I was at El Kab and saw the same Libyan remains in the stairway tombs there, it became clear that the malachite, vases, and so on likely belonged to the original burials, not secondary ones. It suggested that the stairway tombs (and maybe the other mastabas) represented another type of Neolithic burial and that the earlier Neolithic tombs predated the Old Empire. As the excavation continued, additional evidence began to support this idea. The rough pottery found in piles over and near the IVth dynasty mastabas is identical to that found in some of the small Neolithic graves.

A vase made of hard red clay found in Ka-mena’s tomb, which definitely dates back to Sneferu’s reign, was nearly identical to a Libyan style that was typical in Ballas.

One of the carved bowls—a rare but unique type of Libyan pottery—was discovered in a stairway tomb at El Kab.

The small late-Libyan graves were situated between the mastabas from Sneferu's era, without disturbing them or being dug into them, creating the impression that they all belonged to a similar time period.

In one tomb, they found a green steatite cylinder, of a type known from the Old Kingdom, alongside unmistakably Libyan pottery.

In a walk I took one day over the cemetery of Kom el Ahmar, across from El Kab, I noticed once more the same mix of Old Kingdom and Libyan pottery near a cluster of mastabas.

17. To this evidence, we must also add some thoughts about the first cemetery of Naqada and Ballas, which we recognized from the start as challenges to accepting the later dating to the VII-X dynasty.

The complete lack of clearly Egyptian objects from such a large number of tombs, and even from the villages of that time, was hard to explain if we assume that the Egyptians were already in the area.

The Libyans, who are also fans of fine pottery, would definitely have picked up the use of the wheel from the Egyptians if they had encountered them at all; however, nearly all Libyan pottery (with a few rare exceptions) is handmade.

The Libyans often included green paint among the other grooming products buried near the head. The Egyptians of the early Old Empire sometimes showed green paint on their faces. It's more likely that this was a trend passed down from earlier times rather than assuming that such a unique way of decorating was used in two separate periods in the country's history.

Lastly, there is the negative evidence from the mound of Nubt. Here, Dr. Petrie found on the surface walls of the 18th dynasty, with inscriptions and dated pottery; below those walls were those of the 12th dynasty, with pottery again, and even further down, walls and layers of pottery from the Old Kingdom. However, between these last two, there was no trace of Libyan pottery, even though a Libyan town was just a quarter of a mile away.

On reviewing all the evidence from our two cemeteries at Naqada and El Kab, I [Pg 13] concluded that our initial dating was too early. The most recent type of tomb at Naqada was from the same time as the mastabas of the Old Empire, and the earliest type—which is marked by separated skeletons, high-quality flint knives, large amounts of ashes, and a few well-made red and black pots—should be assigned to a much earlier period.

Since then, a lot more information has come to light. M. de Morgan’s second volume of “Recherches sur les Origines de l’Égypte” includes a summary of the discoveries made by M. Amélineau at Abydos, along with a description of the great royal tomb found by M. de Morgan himself at Naqada. M. Amélineau’s finds are mainly recognized as belonging to the first three dynasties, and on an ivory plaque from the royal tomb of Naqada, Dr. Borchardt has highlighted the name of Menes himself.

The items from this tomb are now displayed in the museum at Giza, and it's interesting to note that the pottery, slate palettes, and flint knives are clearly from the later type of Ballas.

It has now become fairly clear that the earliest known inhabitants of Egypt were a tall, fair race similar to the modern Kabyles. They buried their dead in a curled-up position with the head facing south, and in the earliest times, they either mutilated the dead before burial or kept the bodies for a long time before the final burial. The relative dates of the different types of their tombs can be determined, and the graves with mutilated bodies found at Naqada are much older than those at Abydos that contain the names of I-II dynasty kings. At some point that we still can't date, even roughly using Libyan pottery, another race or races entered the country, bringing with them writing, the practice of mummification, the skill of building in brick with recessed panels, and perhaps, as M. de Morgan suggests, metalworking. This is how the Egyptian people of historical times came to be.

18. A point that hasn't been clarified is the different positions of the bodies in open graves and stairway tombs. In the former, the head is positioned to the south; in the stairways and in the graves of Medum, it is facing north.

The burials, too, under the large pots we call majūrs, are not clear, and their exact time period isn't known. Since they were found in the later cemeteries of Ballas, El Kab, and Kom el Ahmar, but not at Naqada, it seems likely they belong to the later part of the Libyan period, specifically after the Egyptian invasion, possibly even after the time of Menes. However, it’s unclear which race they might belong to, if any.

MIDDLE KINGDOM CEMETERY.

19. Inside the town walls, never outside, there were a few examples of a unique type of tomb, featuring underground brick arches, pottery similar to that of the usual XIIth dynasty, but not quite the same, and stone vases with distinctive shapes. The types of pottery are illustrated in Pl. X, 1-28, and the alabaster vases in X, 1-6.

In Pl. XXIV, some walls in a broken line can be seen cutting through the walls of three mastabas, which are shown in solid black. The tombs in question are lined up parallel to these walls, some located inside the square chambers and some outside; and the walls are roughly parallel to the town's great walls. The construction method seems to have been as follows: An oblong excavation, about 6 meters long, 2 meters wide, and 3 meters deep, was made in the gravel. About half the length of this space was used for the tomb; the other half created a rough sloping staircase for the workers. The sides of the grave were built with brick walls, and these were covered by an arch of brick about 1.5 meters high. The body was laid inside at full length, on the left side, with the head facing north; in front of the body was a large amount of pottery. The significance of this group of tombs lies in their potential implications for dating the wall. If we accept that these are likely from the early XII dynasty (as the pottery suggests), then we have early XII dynasty tombs inside and tombs from the reign of Amenemhat III outside the walls. (However, there were two tombs inside the walls where the pottery fragments were very similar to those in the tombs outside.) Now, there is a stela from El Kab that Dr. Spiegelberg pointed out to me (published in Stobart, Egypt. Antiq., Pl. I), which states that Amenemhat III restored the walls at El Kab that Usertesen II had built. The stela does not specify which walls these were, but the evidence from the pottery would support the idea that they were the great town walls. If this is the case, the common pottery of the Middle Kingdom can now be divided into two sections, with the reign of Usertesen II acting as the dividing line.

20. *The tombs in detail.*

In No. 203, there were only two pots and a marble vase. Traces of the roof arch were found. The skeleton, as it lay, measured 1.80 m long.

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

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

No. 242 included 26, 2, 3.

No. 255 had a huge collection of pottery in almost all the shapes (2, 5, 4, 12, 9, 17), much of which was positioned higher than the two bodies; one was lying on its back, while the other was in the standard position. In front of the northern body was an alabaster vase (X, 4), along with a small shell and a piece of bronze rod. Another alabaster jar (X, 3) was next to the hips of the southern skeleton.

No. 264 was in better shape than most, and it held a large number of pots, including more than fifty of the shape XIII, 22, and many of XIII, 20. Almost all of them were broken, as was the case with all these tombs, since the arch had collapsed. This tomb also contained a string of beads, barrel beads made of lapis lazuli, carnelian, and gold foil, along with small discs of gold.

In No. 265, more than two hundred pots were found scattered in all directions; a few were tucked away in a recess halfway down the side of the tomb. All the shapes XIII, 1-28, except for 16 and 22, were discovered in this tomb. There was no skeleton. A hole had been drilled in the base of every pot after they were baked.

One group of tombs from this period (v. Pl. XXIV) seems to have been constructed at the same time. In three of them, the skeletons were found with two or three basic pots placed in front of the face. Outside the enclosure wall of another group of tombs, there was a pile of saucers (like XIII, 12), painted inside with a rough white cross. Based on the material, these are likely from the same period as the tombs.

21. In the large cemetery from the XIIth dynasty outside the town, the graves were built differently, featuring a long, narrow shaft with a chamber opening at both the north and south ends. However, two or possibly three tombs of this style were found inside the walls. This cemetery was well-known among the Arabs, and a few years ago, a group of Qurneh dealers, equipped with a fake Museum permit, dug there for several weeks. The tombs they had robbed could be distinguished from those that were intact or had been looted in earlier times by the sharper outlines of the depressions left behind. Time has softened the signs of earlier thefts, making ancient tombs look similar to those that are intact but have collapsed roofs, resulting in dips in the ground resembling the top of a tomb-shaft. The cemetery is located in a shallow area of the dry streambed at the mouth of El Kab. This shallow area consists of a large gravel bank and fine clay-like debris, with alternating layers of varying thickness. During the XIIth dynasty, the practice was to dig the tomb shaft until reaching a strong enough layer of gravel to safely carve out a chamber. The chambers were about 2 meters square and probably just under 1.5 meters high, and they were generally flat-roofed; in most cases, the roof had collapsed, crushing the bones and often the pottery inside. Even if the roof was intact when we first opened a tomb, it would usually cave in before we had the chance to inspect and clear out the burial. With just the warning of a single falling pebble or a small trickle of sand, a mass weighing maybe two tons could suddenly drop with a loud thud. On two occasions, a worker was caught by part of the fall, and once, just as the helpless man was being rescued, a clumsy helper knocked loose a few hundred pounds and buried him again. These are tense moments because once the shifting ground starts to give way, the entire side of a tomb can collapse in an instant. Fortunately, we faced no serious accidents, although there were many close calls. It's essential during this work to keep a close eye on the workers and require them to practice reasonable caution, as they'll burrow underneath dangerously unstable soil rather than take the time to remove it if left unsupervised. The way the burial-chamber door was sealed wasn't immediately clear, but four or five large jars (Pl. XIV) were frequently found just inside the entrance, suggesting they were used as a building material, similar to how the local peasants near Keneh use damaged water-jars from the nearby potteries. Later, two of the doorways were found actually sealed this way—three jars in the lower layer, two more above them, with the gaps filled with mud. So, these large pots were likely the common water jars of the Middle Kingdom. Other tomb doors were blocked with very roughly arranged bricks. Coffins were quite rare; there was one made of unbaked clay, long and narrow, and a fragment of wood (No. 121) in another grave might have been part of a coffin. However, the soil in El Kab is so [Pg 15] damp and salty that unpainted wooden coffins could have disintegrated without leaving any trace. The same factors have likely caused the disappearance of the clothes in which the deceased were buried, as I found no evidence of them. The most surprising thing was the complete absence of mummification, at least any effective type. Near the well-preserved XVIIIth dynasty tombs, mummies were discovered, possibly the servants of the great individuals buried in the inscribed tombs. There didn't seem to be much difference in the conditions that the mummies and bodies from the XIIth dynasty were exposed to. Yet, I never encountered any signs of mummy wrappings, dried skin, hair, or bitumen in the earlier cemetery. Nor were any mummies found in the early burials I opened at Ballas, and certainly, most of the mummies we know of belong to the XVIIIth dynasty or later. Is it possible that mummification was limited to the upper class until the significant wealth increase during the XVIIIth dynasty led to a broader adoption of the practice?

Some of the later Neolithic bodies were, however, dried, either by artificial methods or by certain properties of the soil, so that the entire body could be lifted out without any of the limbs breaking off. It has been reported that the body of an engineer, who passed away not long ago and was buried at Assuan, was later exhumed to be sold as a mummy and was dried up in this manner.

A chamber usually held more than one body; four was quite common, and in one chamber, eight people, likely women, lay side by side. This definitely clashes with the earlier idea of no mummification. The items found in the graves were of familiar types. There were bottle-shaped vases at the head and feet, alabaster kohl pots, kohl sticks made of ivory, handleless bronze mirrors, paint slabs with pestles, and spatulas made of serpentine and basalt, along with beads of green glaze and various kinds of hard stone, which were typical of our discoveries. The date of these items was already well-known from Kahun and other sites; in fact, the dating of this cemetery could be immediately determined from the pottery fragments found on the surface. This conclusion was supported by the two private stelæ (Pl. IV) and a cylinder of Amenemhat III found in one necklace. Inscriptions were really rare; there were only a few scarabs, and perhaps the most interesting item was the plain alabaster statuette (Pl. V, 2), which was discovered close to its owner's skull. This was the only figure of its kind found in the cemetery and is likely the earliest dated ushabti. It depicts a mummy-shaped figure; no hands, hoe, or basket are visible, but the face is well-crafted.

The tombs were often looted, but it was hard to tell how often, since the damage from collapsing roofs looks a lot like what happens during early robberies. It was rare for a skull to be found intact or for the exact arrangement of the bones in the body to be determined. There was very little reuse of the shafts; one contained pottery and a mirror from the XVIIIth dynasty, and another had a Roman lamp, but these were exceptions; it was strictly a Middle Kingdom cemetery.

22. I collected a great variety of beads, mostly made of hard stone. In one tomb (No. 156), I spent nearly two whole days trying to figure out the original order of the beads on the necklaces. Seven people had been buried in one chamber of this tomb; a large amount of pebbles had fallen from the ceiling, crushing the bones and pottery, which scattered the beads everywhere. I had to be careful to keep the beads from one necklace together. Some of the bodies were adorned with necklaces, bracelets, and anklets, and there was also a string of beads around their waists.

The most common beads were round and barrel-shaped, made of carnelian, hematite, and amethyst, along with shell discs, which were the most common of all. There were small flat discs in green feldspar, as well as hawks and hippopotamus heads. Sphinxes with human heads were typically made of amethyst. Uncarved scarabs in carnelian, amethyst, and jasper were fairly common.

New Empire Monuments.

23. Very little remains in El Kab from any time after the Middle Kingdom, unless the great walls are actually from a later period than we think. The broken pottery found within the town enclosure, specifically in the southwest corner of the large square, appears to be from different times, but it holds a significant amount of a style similar to that of the XXVIth dynasty. Since Nectanebo rebuilt the temple here, it's reasonable to assume that this later pottery dates back to his reign or around that time. Large amounts of similar pottery have also been discovered discarded from several of the significant tombs on and behind the hill of Paheri. These tombs are likely from the XVIIIth dynasty and were reused for a series of poor burials later on. Only two poor burials from the XVIIIth dynasty were found, which were located in long coffins made of coarse red earthenware, fragments of which can be seen by tourists on their way to Paheri's tomb. There are a few looted tombs near the base of the hill, but no large cemetery is known to exist. It's possible that El Kab wasn't a very large town during this time; the families of Paheri and Aahmes may have been the only prominent families in the area.

24. There was some exploration of the beautiful little temple of Amenhotep III, which is about an hour's walk into the desert. The goal wasn't to replicate it, as Mr. Clarke had already started that project, but to try to find out where the original temple was located. It's highly likely that all the inscriptions from the VIth dynasty on the large detached rock near the temple were made by pilgrims visiting a shrine; many fragments of Old Kingdom vases can also be found nearby. At first, I thought that a cemetery from the Old Kingdom might be here, and we searched in various likely and unlikely spots, but the only thing we found was a broken water jar with a late Greek inscription. We then examined the early pottery near the temple; it seemed like just a pile of junk, with no signs of a tomb or brick structure. It sits on the slope of the loose debris where the temple itself is built. The torrent that occasionally rushes down the old riverbed is eroding its southern bank at this point. Below the pile of pottery is a small vertical cliff, 4 meters high, in such soft rock that it's clear the steep face was recently formed, and the temple itself is at risk from a small streambed behind it. It might be, as Professor Sayce first suggested, that the original temple was situated on the northern part of the shoal that has now been washed away; this notion is supported by our discovery of the early offering table shown in Pl. IV, 1, along with many small fragments of inscriptions on pieces of sandstone. Therefore, the original temple is gone, and the pile of pottery thrown out from it will be carried away as well; even the temple of Amenhotep might be eroded in the near future. The effects of sudden storms in the desert are more significant than one might think. There’s no vegetation to absorb the rain, the ground is extremely hard, and anything that doesn’t immediately sink into the soil quickly flows into the larger watercourses, creating a deep and wide stream in just a few hours. Such a storm hit three years ago at El Kab, and the locals tell us that a tributary stream flowed into the Nile for two days. The railway engineers have had to plan for the occurrence of such floods.

25. The foundation deposits can be looked at together. They came from two temples—the large one within the city walls and the smaller temple of Thothmes III, located to the north of the town and west of the hill of Paheri. In the latter, the deposits were quite numerous for such a small temple (v. Pl. XXVI). There was a small pit filled with sand at each corner of the main wall, which have now become quite familiar, and a larger deposit located about a meter away along the side wall. The pits were around 0.60 m in diameter; in two of them, there was a recess at the bottom filled with small brown clay cups. The objects all closely resemble those found in other deposits from this reign at Koptos and Nubt. However, one shape of pot (XXI, 14) has not been seen in a foundation deposit before, and the flat blue-glazed tiles (15 cm long), one found in each deposit, should be noted. All the deposits were carefully excavated, and the positions of the different objects were recorded, but there was no clear pattern to the arrangement.

The deposits discovered beneath the massive temple are particularly intriguing; those of Amenhotep II, situated under walls inscribed with Rameses II's writings, provide another example of Rameses II’s appropriations. Deposits from two other separate categories lacked any inscriptions of royal names and can’t be dated. Their location is indicated in the very rough sketch of the temple layout in Pl. I.

The contents of the various deposits are provided below:—

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

N. 4. Sandstone mortar, green glazed eye (28), the other items as in N. 1, but with the addition of tablets made of calcite and lead.

N. 5. contained the glaze block (40), a bronze knife, a small brick of myrrh, and pottery, just like the others.

N. 2. and N. 3. each consisted of a single object, one [Pg 17] a small rectangular block of iron 1½ inches long, and the other a tablet of blue frit (like 37).

These last two deposits clearly don’t belong to the same builder as the others.

The deposits of Amenhotep II included alabaster models, with inscriptions that were the same as those of Thothmes III, except for the change in cartouche.

26. The temple to the east of the central eastern gate of the town was excavated, and a 12th dynasty tomb was found beneath it. The walls had been removed, but the floor of the temple was mostly intact, and from the scratches left by the masons, the layout was restored. This will be published by Mr. Clarke. No foundation deposits were found, and the only piece of inscription was part of the cartouche of Nectanebo.

27. There's no definite answer to when the great wall was built. We've already mentioned reasons to think it was constructed by Usertesen II, but several attempts were made to test this idea. The base of the wall was cleared at various points to look for any debris left by the builders, and all the gateways were checked for foundation deposits. In the east gate, about 3 feet above the stone pavement, there was a layer of pottery shards, decorated with a rough pattern of comma-shaped dashes, and alongside them were some fragments of an ostracon written in late demotic. This indicates that the gateway was already somewhat ruined and blocked during Roman times. Also, between the row of mastabas to the north and the great wall, the foot of an ushabti, possibly from the XXVI dynasty, and a pot (Pl. XX, 13), likely Roman, were found. The first was at ground level, while the second was 5 feet above it. However, the placement of these items only suggests that the sand-heap hadn't reached its current level when they were left behind, and I didn't notice anything that completely contradicted the early date proposed. It's worth mentioning, though, that Mr. Somers Clarke, with his extensive experience, believes the stonework of the gates and the arch in the north wall show characteristics of a much later style. He will detail this in his own work on El Kab.

28. A collection of late bronzes was discovered at one location in the southern part of the large enclosure. There were 800 pieces total, each mounted on a small wooden base. One (Pl. V, 3) was an exquisite piece, depicting Nekheb being worshipped by a kneeling figure. The others were representations of Osiris, except for one that depicted Imhetep. About a hundred of them were 5 inches tall or more, made with good craftsmanship from thin bronze cast over a core. They were all grouped together in an area measuring 1.1 m by 0.6 m, not close to any tomb.

29. Near the southeast corner of the town (Pl. XXIV) was an unusual brick building made up of four rows of brick pillars, six in each row, surrounded by a wall. The pillars were about 2 m square, and the spaces between them were only about 0.80 m wide. The actual height of the brickwork was 1.50 m or less, but the building might have been taller, as the base of a brick staircase remained between two of the pillars. Inside the building were many pots, mostly broken, that had a long bottle shape with a wide mouth and a hole at the bottom about an inch wide (XX, 14); these pots fit perfectly into certain holes spaced evenly in the brickwork. Similar pots, but shorter, are still used in Egypt, built into the walls of pigeon towers to provide nesting spots for the birds. Based on the pottery, this building could be from Arab times, but the large size of the bricks (34 cm × 17.5 × 11), a piece of a stone window found on the south side, and the smooth surface of the site before we started digging make it unlikely that the structure is recent.

PLATE DESCRIPTIONS.

30. Pl. I—Numbers 1, 2, and 3 show the plan, elevation, and longitudinal section of one (264) of the sunk arch tombs thought to belong to the early 12th dynasty.

No. 4 shows the layout of the chamber in the IVth dynasty tomb of Ka-mena; 5 and 6 are rough notes about the stone walls on the east and south sides of the same chamber.

No. 7 shows the layout of the significant tomb where an inscribed cylinder was discovered alongside Neolithic pots (No. 166, § 13).

No. 8 is a rough sketch of the great temple of El Kab, included to illustrate the location of the foundation deposits.

31. Pl. II.—1. The stone vessels from the Neolithic period and the Old Kingdom, displayed at University College. Only one was intact; even those that seemed most complete were assembled from small pieces found in the gravel or mud, with help from our friends in England. On the right are five slate paint slabs from the later Neolithic period; closer to the wall are diorite bowls, alabaster tables, flat dishes made of limestone and alabaster, a bronze ewer (from Ka-mena), and a pottery model of a granary.

No. 2 shows all the small items from the significant tomb with a majūr burial (166)—shells, an ivory disc, ivory hairpins, a flint flake, a steatite cylinder, beads, ivory bracelets, two pots, and two stone bowls. (For the inscription on the cylinder v. Pl. XX, 29).

No. 3 shows the items from Ka-mena’s tomb as taken in front of our house shortly after they were discovered (larger size in Pl. III, 2).

No. 4 shows a mastaba wall right after it was excavated.

No. 5 is a view of our house with the piles of pottery in front of it.

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

No. 2. The bronze and stone artifacts from Ka-mena during Sneferu's reign, with whose name the flat diorite bowl below is inscribed. The central bowl is made of very light-colored, translucent diorite, while the deeper one is made of porphyry. Below are model tools made of copper. (These are shown in outline, Pl. XVIII, 56-65.)

Pl. IV. (Note from Dr. Spiegelberg.)

1. Table of offerings from the dry stream bed in the desert near Amenhotep’s temple, dedicated using the usual formula addressed to Anubis, Osiris, and Nekhbet, by “the king’s trusted friend, the treasurer, chief prophet, destroying the evil (?) [Kfau? asf?]” ... and to his father “who serves his god well, the king’s trusted friend, the treasurer,[A] chief prophet, privy councillor of the royal treasure Shema[.a].”

This is the person referred to in a rock inscription from El Kab, published by Stern (Aeg. Zeitschr., 1875, Pl. I r.). With this identification, we can attribute this tablet to the VIth dynasty.

2. The inscription on this XIIth dynasty sandstone stela from the cemetery should be split in the middle. The right half—“the well-deserved of Anubis, Usrtsn, son of Srtuy (?)”—refers to the main figure holding a nabút in the left hand and the well-known scepter of command in the right.

The person behind, who is carrying a long Nymphaea caerulea, is “his beloved son, Khuy, son of Mryt-[[.a]]tfs,” and might be the one who dedicated this stela. So we have the following genealogy:—

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

3. Limestone stela from the end of the 12th dynasty, from the cemetery, dedicated by a man named Sabna to his father, who had the same name and was a prophet of Amon.

In the first line, we have the offering formula directed to Osiris, and the next part includes this genealogy:—

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

Pl. V.—No. 1. A piece of blue-glazed pottery from a XIIth dynasty tomb (No. 1). It depicts a flat-headed god, featuring the youthful side-lock, with a body shaped like a mummy, and darker lines illustrating a beaded pattern.

No. 2 is the alabaster ushabti from the 12th dynasty.

No. 3 is a beautiful bronze (height 19 cm), currently located in Ghizeh, depicting a man worshiping Nekheb; his hands are positioned side by side in front of him, palms facing down. This is easily the best of the 800 bronzes discovered together; out of these, 700 were worthless, and the remainder were standard Osiris figures.

No. 4. A collection of unusual pots where the designs of an offering table and a house model appear to be mixed together. They are only known from the Middle Kingdom, found at Ballas and El Kab, and are commonly displayed in museums. The offerings inside can typically be seen in good examples and include the head and legs of an ox, bread (?), and jars of water. One model features the roof of a hut made from wooden logs, along with an external staircase.

No. 5. A group found together, consisting of a sa amulet made of bronze, a dark steatite cylinder, and a small glazed steatite draughtsman with a human head and traces of some inscription below. The writing on the cylinder is copied in Pl. XX, 28, and is quite puzzling. The name inside a cartouche appears to be Ka-kau-ra, which isn't a name of any known king. Since the pottery found in the tomb is from the XIIth dynasty, and the burial is from that period's cemetery, one might interpret it as Kha-kau-ra, Usertesen III. However, his Ka name, Neter-kheperu, is known and doesn't match the other name on the cylinder. The cylinder belongs to a style recognized from the IVth and Vth dynasties, and [Pg 19] Dr. Petrie suggests it might be Men-kau-ra, and that his Ka name could have been Men-maat, with the maat only being represented by the straight sign. If this is accurate, we must assume that the owner of this grave found the cylinder at some ancient site.

No. 6 displays one of the small clay figures of Nekheb found behind the stonework of the east gate.

Pl. VI.—No. 1. A collection of the most exquisite stone vases. The upright dish is made of diorite; over two-thirds of it was found, all in small fragments. It is inscribed suten biti Sneferu. The jar on the left is made of green slate, the central bowl is made of porphyry, and the rest is alabaster. All are likely from the IVth dynasty or earlier.

No. 2. On the left, in the back row, the most common coarse pot from the IVth dynasty; on the right, a lesser-known type (XII, 29); in the center, one of the Neolithic-type pots from Ka-mena’s tomb. In front is the inscribed piece of majūr and the model of a granary, the latter from Ka-mena.

32. Pl. VII.—The upper sketch by Mr. Clarke displays the two mastabas, C and D, being excavated, with the massive wall of El Kab in the background. The lower view is taken from between D and E (cf. Pl. XXIII). It shows the two boundary walls in the center, the steep sand face in front, and a large amount of coarse pottery stacked on the walls, which was discovered here in significant quantity. The measuring rod is the 2-meter pole used to evaluate the workers' progress.

Pl. VIII.—No. 1 shows another mastaba. The brickwork that closes off the northern (i.e., the closer) niche is from a later period. The two niches, or false doors, the passage or chapel, the two depressions in the brickwork that were filled with dirt, and the well—this one is quite large—are shown in this view similar to a plan.

No. 2 is a copy made by Miss Murray of the lid of a makeup box found in a mastaba. It’s made from a veneer (? on wood) of ivory, along with blue and black pieces of glazed pottery.

Nos. 3-9 are pieces of ivory from another box.

Pl. IX.—Copies of watercolor sketches of a stairway tomb, both taken from below (by Miss Murray from Miss Pirie’s sketches).

33. Pl. X.—Stone vessels. 1-5 are made of alabaster, and together with 6, they come from the sunk arches, which are thought to be from the earlier XIIth dynasty, meaning sometime between the Old Kingdom and the reign of Usertesen II; 7-12 are from the later XIIth dynasty. Items 7, 8, and 10 are the more common ones, with shape 7 being undecorated when made of stone. The vertical alabasters from the XIIth dynasty closely resemble some from earlier periods (like 23), but a slight bulge near the top (clearly seen in 47) and a wider base (as in 23, 25) often help to identify the earlier styles. The shapes from 15 onward are associated with Neolithic and Old Kingdom burials, though 14 was found in a XIIth dynasty grave (36); 15 comes from a small stairway tomb, as does 26. All shapes are made of alabaster unless noted otherwise. A rough version of No. 44 was discovered at Ballas, used in ancient times as a lamp with a floating wick.

34. Pl. XI showcases the clearly Neolithic pottery styles. Items 1, 2, 4, 12, 16, and 18 are made of rough brown clay. Items 5-9, along with 11, 13, and 14, feature quality drab colors. Item 10 is a red, smooth pebble-polished pottery, and item 15 is a dark red. Items 17 and 18 were discovered in a mastaba alongside Old Kingdom pots, suggesting they are likely from that same period. Item 13 is the notable type of hard brick-red pot that was found in Ka-mena’s tomb.

Pl. XII.—The upper half of the plate (20-46 and 50) displays the shapes of the very coarse pottery found in large numbers above and in the mastabas, as well as near the temple of Amenhotep III in the desert. Most were already familiar, but 26 and 32 are new additions. The common forms are 21, 22, 23, 32, 31, and 34. No. 47 is the pot from Ka-mena’s tomb, resembling a Neolithic design. Nos. 48, 49, 51, 55, and the three sharp-edged bowls are made of good quality clay, finished with haematite. The two small pots 56 (from mastaba C, Pl. XXIII) are unlike any others from this period—pink on the inside, yellow on the outside, with black line decoration.

35. Pl. XIII.—Items 1-28 are the types found in the sunk arch tombs inside the walls, believed to be later than the Old Kingdom pottery from the last plate, but earlier than that of the succeeding plates. Most of these pots are made of a relatively hard light red clay, which sets them apart from most of the XIIth dynasty pottery found outside the walls. However, forms 8-16 are made of a soft brown clay and are very thick and heavy. All these pots are wheel-made but scraped by hand on the lower half. The forms from 28a to 35 are from the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties, taken from secondary burials in the Middle Kingdom cemetery.

Pl. XIV.—All except No. 3 are water jars, with Nos. 5, 6, 7, and 8 being the typical shapes. No. 4, featuring four handles, is made from a nice, hard drab material, and No. 1 is painted. The rest, which are by far the most common types, are made of a rather coarse, soft pottery, ranging in color from dull brown to pink; the brown pottery is the softest and most prone to chipping. In the last two, you can see the marks from the string that held them together before they were fired. [Pg 20]

Pl. XV continues the catalog of 12th dynasty pottery. In the center are two large stands and a big bowl, each taken from a single example, all made of a hard, dull, polished material. The bowls 11-14 and 16, made of a light-red, somewhat soft material, were common shapes. The hemispherical cup (18, 22) is even more common, and had already been found at two 12th dynasty sites. The dish made of a soft red material (21) was very common, appearing in nearly every tomb. The combined cup and stand (33, 34, 35) shows that the bowls in the upper part of this plate (11, etc.) were typically placed on the ring stands (38-46). The compound form is made from a weak material and is rarely found intact. The ring stands are usually made of red material, and less frequently (as in 38) from the better dull material.

Pl. XVI.—The bottles at the top are usually made of red clay, but 47 and 62 are made of tough, dull pottery.

No. 57 can be seen as resembling a Neolithic style, featuring a typical Neolithic characteristic. The smaller forms, 63, 64, 67, and 68, are frequently found together. When a tomb includes one of these smaller types, it usually has a large number of them. They might indicate a specific time period.

No. 60 is a regular water jar. Nos. 58, 70, 71, and 72 are the uncommon drab jars, of which fewer than twelve were found in a hundred graves.

Pl. XVII.—Common forms are 76, 77, 79, 84, 86. Some of the shapes, like 116 and 131, also appear in the early 12th dynasty pottery inside the wall.

36. Pl. XVIII shows the impressions left while still soft on rough pottery discovered in stairway tombs, mastabas, and similar sites. These marks appear again (as 7 and 9, 40 and 41) in various tombs. Hieroglyphs are rare, but they do appear (25, 46).

The name No. 44 appears on a majūr, which slightly supports the early date assigned to those pots. Below are inscribed fragments of limestone, 49-53 and 55, from Ka-mena’s mastaba, and 54 from a nearby one. Nos. 56-65 are copper models of tools from Ka-mena’s tomb.

Pl. XIX shows the markings from XIIth dynasty pots, mostly created after they were baked, so they likely relate to the owners rather than the potters. Similar signs sometimes appear in different tombs (44 and 48, 45 and 46, 37 and 38, 29 and 30, 32 and 33). Could these be notes about what’s inside the jars?

37. Pl. XX.—No. 1 is a fragment of a bowl made of incised pottery discovered in a stairway tomb.

Nos. 2, 3, and 4 are also pieces of incised pottery found in some irregular holes on the north side of Paheri Hill, which haven't been mentioned before. Along with them were a few very late blue glaze beads and two pots that were probably Roman, but these three fragments are clearly much older.

No. 5 is the outline of a majūr, the large pot used as a coffin in the Old Kingdom.

No. 6 is a piece of Neolithic pottery from one of the small graves within the town (cf. Naqada, XXXV, 74).

Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 are from intrusive burials in the 12th dynasty cemetery. No. 13, possibly Roman, is significant in relation to the dating of the great wall (cf. § 27).

No. 14 is one of the pots from the pigeon house in the south of the town (Pl. XXIV).

After the scarabs, there are six cylinders.

No. 28, made of black stone, possibly Men-kau-ra, but from the 12th dynasty cemetery.

No. 29, made of green steatite, from a tomb located on a stairway.

No. 30, likely copper, not bronze, found with a majūr burial.

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

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

38. Pl. XXI lists the objects from the different foundation deposits. The first sixteen items come from the small temple of Thothmes III. Items 1, 2, and 4 are made of blue glaze. The spiral mark on the bead is significant; it’s common in the 12th dynasty and also seen in the 18th dynasty at Deir-el-Bahri. Items 3 and 8 are sandstone corn rubbers with inscriptions in blue paint; 5 and 9 are alabaster models of a fire-drill head (?) and a double shell. All the inscriptions read: “The good god, Menkheper-ra, beloved of Nekheb.” Item 10 is a small wooden girdle tie; 6, 7, and 11 are bronze tools. The five pots below are smaller in scale.

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

From No. 25 onwards, all are from the later deposits (Pl. I, 8 N), also located beneath the great temple. The items made of green glaze include Nos. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 38, 39, and 48; those made of bronze are Nos. 31, 33, 34, 35, and 32; items made of clay include Nos. 41 and 47. No. 42 is made of bone, No. 37 is of calcite, and Nos. 36 and 39 are made of red glass. Nos. 43 and 44 (scale ⅙) represent typical pottery shapes. Nos. 45 and 46 display the coarse sandstone mortars found in these deposits.

39. Pl. XXII is a map of the XIIth dynasty tombs discovered outside the east wall of the temple.

Pl. XXIII shows the large cluster of mastabas discovered beneath the sand pile north of the town wall.

Pl. XXIV shows a group of buildings in the southern part of the town enclosure, mastabas, small open graves from the Libyan period, and arched graves from the 12th dynasty.

Pl. XXV includes illustrations of a stone gateway in the great wall, beneath which an unproductive search was conducted for foundation deposits.

Pl. XXVI shows the layout of the small temple of Thothmes III located north of the town, from which many foundation deposits were found. The deposits are marked by circles.

40. Pl. XXVII is a catalog of the small Libyan tombs displaying the collections of alabaster and pottery vessels that are typically grouped together.

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