PYRAMIDS OF MERGE of the hill on the east side, it was easy to see where Ferlini had excavated one of the small pyramids, for the heaps of rubbish lay untouched at the side, and they looked as if they might have been taken out of the ground only a few months previously. I examined with interest the pyramid marked F on Cailliaud's plan, and its chapel, and the hole in the masonry from which Ferlini is said to have taken out the treasure of the great queen of Meroe, and it was clear that many people since his day must have dug in the pyramid in the hope of finding further collections of jewellery, or money. From nearly every shrine which was easily cleared out I saw that blocks of stone were missing from one or other of the side walls, general!}' above or near the most important figures in the scene or procession. A reference to the monumental publication of Lepsius shows at once that some of the missing stones were inscribed with texts in the Meroitic character, and the official Guide - to the Egyptian and Nubian Antiquities in the Berlin Museum proves that they are now in that institution. No one can blame Lepsius for removing these precious relics of an important, but dead and forgotten language, to a place of safety in Europe, and it is to be hoped that when the Governor-General of the Sudan is in a position to have cleared out the chapels of the two great pyramids to the north of the northern group, which are still buried under many tons of fallen stones, he will take steps to have removed to Khartum any Meroitic inscriptions which may be found on the walls.

The examination of the Pyramids of Meroe which I was able to make in i8gg made it clear to me that further excavations ought to be made on the site ; for nothing whatever was known about the funerary customs of the ancient people of Meroe, and there was the possibility that bilingual inscriptions in the Egyptian and Meroitic languages might be discovered among the buried chapels. Moreover, it was important to prove, or disprove, the theory which was held by some to the effect that the queens and kings of Meroe were buried in their pyramids and not beneath them. The examination of the site also showed that the work of excavation and clearing would be a very serious one, ' Denkmdler, Abth. V.

2 Ausfuhrliches Verzeichnis, Berlin, 1899, p. 401 fF.

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