THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN the broken slabs from their roofs ; whilst this was being done we attacked, with about twenty men, the four small ruined pyramids which stood on each side of the pylon of pyramid No. ii in the plan (Cailliaud L, Hoskins H, Lepsius No. lo). Each pyramid was about twelve feet square at the base, and its core was made of mud, sand, and small blocks of stone, chippings from the quarry, pebbles from the desert, &c. ; the casing was formed by rows of small slabs of sandstone, piled one above the other, and no mortar was used in its construction. On the east side of each were the remains of a small stone false door and of a very shallow chapel, but no traces of inscriptions were to be seen on them. We began by trying to sink a shaft at the exact spot where the chapel had stood before one of these pyramids, but, as we came almost immediately on the living rock, which showed no signs of having been touched by a mason's tool, it was quite evident that no shaft existed there. We then removed the remains of the pyramid, and on coming to the bed-rock, we found the entrance to a shaft about five feet in diameter ; the shaft was an irregular square in shape, and was filled with clean desert sand. When this had been cleared out to a depth of about thirty feet, we found on the side facing the east two slabs of stone, about two feet six inches long and a foot wide, leaning backwards, with a space of about six inches between them. They seemed to be intended to represent the two towers of the pylon of a funerary chapel, and if this were so, the space between them must have been meant to serve as the door. On moving these, we saw behind them the traces of an oval-shaped opening which had been stopped with mud, and behind this was a small hollow, hewn in the rock, about three feet high, two feet wide, and eighteen inches deep. The lower part was filled with sand, and in the sand was a tall narrow earthenware jar of the Roman Period, about two feet high. We took out the jar carefully, and it appeared to be half full of mud plaster, which closely resembled that used in stopping the entrance to the hollow in the rock wherein the jar stood. The mud plaster in the jar fitted loosely, and when it was taken out we found in the bottom of the jar a quantity of very fine sand and bone ashes. Thus it was clear that the body of the man for whom the pyramid had been made was burned, and not mummified. The jar seemed 342 i