AGE OF THE PYRAMIDS the eastern slope of the hill, or on its skirts, close to the sandy bottom of the valley, and which form the tombs of the immediate descendants of the queens of Meroe, and of the kings with Negro features, who appear to have acquired dominion over the Kingdom of Meroe. In the present state of our knowledge it is futile to attempt to assign exact dates to these pyramids, for we have nothing to guide us except the sculptures on the chapels, which suggest that the oldest pyramids of the Northern Group belong to the end of the Ptolemaic Period, say the first century before Christ, and the latest to the Roman Period, say the second or third century after Christ. It is certain that when some of the inscriptions were cut on the chapels there were people in Meroe who could read them, and who took care that the masons made the hieroglyphics correcth', and it is equally certain that when others were cut all knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphics had died out, and that they were regarded merely as the traditional ornaments of the walls of funerary pyramids.

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