THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN was a false door on the west wall of the chapel, ornamented with the winged disk and a cornice of uraei wearing disks, and in the lower part of it was inserted a sepulchral stele, with a rounded top. On the upper portion are cut in outline figures of the deceased and Osiris and Isis ; the god is seated on his throne, with Isis behind him, and in front of him stands the deceased, who holds in his right hand a palm -branch and flowers. On the throne of the god is the symbolic representation of the union of the South and North, t, which is found at a very early period in Egypt, and above is the solar disk with large outspread wings. Below this scene is an inscription of six lines, in cursive Meroitic characters, the divisions between the words being marked by double dots, : , as in Ge'ez or Ethiopic, and in Amharic, the modern language of Abyssinia. This stele was taken to Berlin by Lepsius, and is now preserved in the Royal Museum (No. 2253) ; the accompanying illustration is taken from the facsimile of it which he published in the Denkmdler (V. 54 e, VI.

10. 45). From No. 27 of this group also came the inscribed altar whereon are cut figures of Anubis and Nephthys pouring out libations on behalf of the deceased. This object also was taken to Berlin by Lepsius, and is now preserved in the Royal Museum (No. 2254) ; the illustration here given is from the facsimile published in the Denkmdler (VI. 9).

The pyramids of this group appear to belong to a later period than that of either the Northern or the Southern Group, and we shall probably be not far wrong if we assign some of them to the second or third century of the Christian Era, and some to even a later date. The careless building of these structures betokens not only haste in construction, but want of knowledge, for it is evident from many particulars that the masons who put them together were not so well skilled in their art as those who built the pyramids of the kings and queens on the hills to the east. It is, of course, open to argue that they are not all necessarily royal, and that we should not expect them to be so well or so solidly, built as royal sepulchres, but, on the other hand, some of them are certainly royal, and these exhibit the same defects of construction as the smallest and meanest of the pyramids, which may mark 432 \