PREFACE

In the summer of 1897, by arrangement with the Sirdar, Sir H.

Kitchener, the Trustees of the British Museum sent me on an

Archaeological Mission to the Sudan. By the end of the year I

had examined the Pyramid-fields at Niiri, Kurru, Zuma, and

Tankasi, had opened one of the Pyramids at Gebel Barkal, and

had dug through portions of the ruined temples on this site.

In the winter of 1898-99 I was again sent to the Sudan, and

was permitted to examine the four groups of Pyramids which

stand near the site of the ancient city of Meroe, with a view of

excavating the most important of them when an opportunity

offered. In the winter of 1900-01 it was proposed to carry on

excavations on the Island of Meroe, but as, owing to the lack of

population, no labour was forthcoming, the project had to be

abandoned. In the spring of 1902, Sir Reginald Wingate, who had succeeded Lord Kitchener as Sirdar, made arrangements for

excavating the group of the largest pyramids at Meroe, and I was

sent to the Sudan to conduct the archaeological portion of the

work. As a result of the excavations made at this time it was

found that the chambers in which the dead were placed were

beneath the pyramids, as in Egypt, and not in the pyramids as some had supposed ; that the bodies of the native kings and queens

were not mummified; and that the chambers of the dead were

not filled with funerary furniture, as is usually the case in Egypt.

Beneath several of the smaller pyramids large jars half filled with

sand and ashes of human bones were found in small vaulted

chambers, a fact which proved that the bodies of several members

of the ruling class at Meroe were burned. Thus the expectation

that the pyramids of Meroe would yield a rich harvest of sepulchral

antiquities was not fulfilled.

In the spring of 1905 I was sent to the SMIn to assist Sir

Reginald Wingate in collecting antiquities for the newly established

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