THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN away before its complete plan could be made out. It seems tolerably certain that it was built for funerary purposes by some king or queen of Nubia, who either established or restored services for the dead at Nuri, for the bases of its columns are of the same size and style as those in the temple of Tirhakah across the river, and probably belong to the period of his reign. Cailliaud imagined that Nuri represented the necropolis of Gebel Barkal, but this is unlikely, and it is far more probable that the remains of the city, over which ruled the kings who built the pyramids of Nuri, lie under the Sirdar's camp at Sanam Abu Dom. Near the pyramids Hoskins traced the remains of the banks of a canal which ran some distance inland from the Nile ; these, as he rightly says, indicate that the cultivated land extended much further into the interior, and it is probable that the bodies of the dead were brought by water from the city to Nuri for burial.

Down stream, at a distance of about seven miles from Sanam Abii Dom, and on the same side of the river, lies the pyramid field of Tankasi. At this place the cultivable land runs back from the river for nearly a mile, and just beyond the edge of this, on the skirt of the desert, the remains of a number of pyramids are to be seen. The pyramids are represented by mounds of sand, earth, and small stones, and in every instance the stone casing has disappeared. With one exception, all the pyramids here were small, and were, no doubt, poorly built, and it seems as if they marked the tombs of the ordinary native folk who belonged to the city which must have stood near Sanam Abu Dom. I could neither hear of nor find the remains of any pyramids or temples on the west bank down stream of Tankasi, or up stream of Nuri, and it seems that these places form the limits of the great Nubian settlement which was made in pre-Christian times at the western end of the Wsldi Abu Dom.

Two hours' ride from the site of the Sirdar's camp in 1897 are some low stone hills in which are still to be seen a number of chambers, short passages, and irregularly shaped excavations ; some of these maj' be gold miners' workings, but a few are certainly the remains of tombs. One chamber was noteworthy, for its walls had been covered with a thin layer of plaster, and it resembled the principal room of an Egyptian tomb ; it is possible 122 1