rE AGE OF THE PYRAMIDS his pyramid at least was built some time during the Ptolemaic Period, or perhaps even a little earlier. The same idea is suggested by the fact that Asru, the builder of No. 5, adopted the prenomen of Psammetichus II., Nefer-ab-Ra, (olol?

to which, however, he added dnkA, thus ( I "f" "O" ]• That he should call himself " beloved of Amen " was only natural, seeing that the inhabitants of Meroe honoured above all other gods the gods whom their kinsmen at Napata, or Gebel Barkal, had learned to worship through the instructions of the priests of Amen-Ra of Thebes, who had lied thither on the downfall of their rule in Egypt. In any case, it seems that the ten pyramids of the Southern Group all belong to the same period, for the system followed in decorating the walls of the chapels is practically the same in each, and the same groups of gods occur in each set of reliefs, and the similarity of the work, especially as concerns the manner in which the hieroglyphics are cut, indicates, in my opinion, that the masons belonged to one family or school, just as the kings and queens for whom they built the pyramids belonged to one dynasty. The first three or four pyramids of the Northern Group were probably built by the same dynasty, for both they and their chapels have much in common with those of the Southern Group. The measurements of the lengths of the sides of the pyramids at their bases given above are only approximately correct ; much clearing will have to be done before exact details can be given. The site chosen by the builders of the Southern Group is admirable for the purposes of a necropolis, for it is surrounded by low, barren hills, which hide the pyramids almost entirely from travellers going north or south on the plain. When their tops are seen from a little distance it is quite easy to mistake them for the little pointed hills which abound in the Sudan. The stone used in their construction appears to have been taken from the nearer of the two quarries in the hills to the east, where the layers of sandstone are thick and of nearly the same colour ; the grain, too, is closer than that of the stone used in the Northern Group, and it is not so quickly affected by the weather. The stones which form the p3'ramids of the older group are more massive than those of the later pyramids, and squarer, 427