EXCAVATIONS AT MERGE to me to belong undoubtedly to the Roman Period, but it also strongly resembled in size and shape the jars which are found in the Parthian graves of about B.C. 150 and later in Mesopotamia, and which also contain the ashes of the dead mixed with lime, earth, &c. Nothing but the jar and its ashes was found in the tomb, and having searched everywhere in it, we filled up the shaft with the sand which had come out of it. We then levelled the remains of the other three small pyramids, and found the shafts, which we cleared out as before. At the bottom of each shaft we found two slabs of stone, standing as before, and a small hollow hewn in the rock, having its entrance filled with mud plaster. Two of the hollows contained a jar, the third held two jars, but three of the four jars were broken, apparently owing to the pressure exerted by the sand which filled the shafts, for this had driven the slabs through the openings, and they had crushed the jars. The broken jars were made of a reddish kind of material, not unlike that of the sirs, or water jars, produced by modern potters in the Sudan. We made no attempt to collect the scattered ashes of the dead, but the whole jars were carried to the surface and then kept in a tent until they were taken to Khartum. The pyramids under which we found the ashes of burnt bodies appeared to me to belong to a very late period ; it is probable that they covered the tombs of foreigners, perhaps of Roman officials, who were quartered at Meroe, and died there. In all the other tombs under the pyramids in the Sudan, the bodies were found in an unburned and unmummified state.

So soon as the shafts of the four small ruined pyramids referred to in the preceding paragraph had been filled in, the men who had dug them out were moved to the foot of the hill, and we began to work at the small pyramids there. We found without difficulty the shafts which Ferlini and Stefani had cleared out, but, as nothing was discovered of interest in them when they had been excavated, they were again filled in, and we passed on to the largest pyramid of the row. The stone casing had been removed, but a portion of the chapel, with its pylon, was still standing. A trial excavation in front of the chapel proved that the entrance was not there, and we therefore proceeded to remove the core of the pyramid. This work was completed in 343