8]"/> brickwork were traced, but the walls were not high enough to show the recessed panels, which probably once existed.

In Stairway 6, a large tomb, coarse shapes of pottery (XII, 23, 35) were found, and also vertical alabaster jars, fragments of an alabaster table, and of bowls, hairpins of ivory, and an oblong slate palette with two stone rubbers. This was of one of the later shapes of Naqada. There was also a large pot (of the shape XII, 49, but larger), similar to the later pottery of the New Race.

Stairway 5 must be counted in this group of tombs, though it differed from the common type in three respects. It was much larger, the brickwork being 41 metres long by 20 wide; instead of an open stairway it had a small shaft opening into a long inclined plane which led down to the burial chamber; the chamber, too, was very large (7 m. square). The recessed brickwork remained on the west side, and the passage which led to the niche on the east side can still be traced. The clearing of this tomb formed a tedious task for six men during three weeks, and nothing important was found. A pot (X, 29), found inside the great chamber, suggested that it had been entered during the XVIIIth dynasty, and three alabaster vases (28 cm. high) were most probably canopic jars from some late burial. This tomb is a prominent object to anyone looking north from the El Kab wall, and has the appearance of a natural mound.

Another stairway tomb was remarkable for the great number of coarse limestone and alabaster vertical jars which were piled at the bottom of the stair. There were 150 of these, but nothing else in the tomb, except a few pieces from a bowl of brown incised ware (XX, 1), somewhat like the rare incised pottery found at Naqada.

Staircase 8 contained a stand of coarse pottery and a small coarse saucer (XII, 31, 44), the rough handmade vase (XII, 23), fragments of large water-jars of better ware, and two alabaster bowls, one of the sharp-edged type (XI, 33), the other of the common shape, drawn in at the mouth (XI, 44); there were also two mud jar-seals of flat saucer-like shape.

In Stairway 9 the sides of the shaft had been plastered with mud. The stone door of the burial chamber was still standing, the robbers having apparently found it easier to force their way through the comparatively soft earth above the great slab. We were frequently able to trace their mode of entrance, and found that they sank their shafts at the deep end of the stairway, never clearing the long flight of steps. This would seem to show that the robberies took place while this method of burial was remembered. This tomb contained fragments of one of the large hemispherical pots used as coffins (majūrs), and pieces of a large jar of polished red ware, the lines of polish on which run lengthways; this ware again cannot be distinguished from the Libyan. There was also a vertical jar of veined marble, the horizontally-pierced handle of a typical Libyan stone vase, an alabaster bowl and a vase (X, 43), with a couple of coarse pottery bowls of IVth dynasty type (XII, 37).

Stairway 10 contained only the coarse pottery, but the common jars (XII, 23) bore a series of simple marks made before firing (XVIII, 21-4, and a triangle).

Stairway 12 had been robbed, though the sandstone door had not been moved. The body had been laid in a wooden box (80 cm. long), which nearly filled the chamber. The wood had disappeared, but the thin layers of paint still kept their place. The body lay on the left side, contracted, the head to the north. A small diorite bowl stood near the head of the coffin, and a common alabaster vase in the earth above it. Round the bones of the arm were carnelian beads of short barrel shape.

No. 226 was exceptional in the position of the entrance to the tomb chamber. On descending the stairway, one found oneself at the base of a large well, in the east side of which, and not visible from the stairway, stood the great door. In the filling was found a good flint knife, of the usual early type, with small handle, but much inferior to the finer Neolithic work.

The contents of this series of tombs have been given thus in detail, in order to show that the same grouping of objects occurs over and over again, and that they can therefore be with confidence attributed to the original burials, though if only a single tomb had been examined there would be no proof of the contemporaneousness of any object in it. It will be observed that the contents of the stairway tombs are very closely similar to those of the mastabas with square wells, but that objects characteristic of Neolithic tombs—green paint, double vases, marbles, etc.—are rather more numerous in the stairway tombs. This makes it seem likely that the stairway tombs here at El Kab are earlier in date than the mastabas with square wells.

12. Next we may describe the small graves, generally about 3-4 feet deep, in which there is no chamber for burial, but the body is laid in the shaft or open grave. These were found chiefly inside the fort of El Kab, though a few were outside the walls. Some were distinctly of Neolithic type, but of that later variety in which the fine black and red pottery is not found. Of the earlier type, only one small group of twenty graves was discovered; these were well outside the town, on the west side of the railway, and so thoroughly cleared out that only half a dozen chips of pottery remained to show their real nature. But of the later kind many examples were found, and still more numerous were the empty graves which, by their size and position, seemed to belong to the same class.

This type is characterised by the contracted position of the body, the vertical jars with cordage pattern, the square slate palettes, the flat alabaster dishes, and four shapes of alabaster vases (X, 22, 44, 48, 31), two of which often occur also in the mastabas. The first group obtained were inside an oblong brick building, which showed red in the distance, the colour being due to the great number of broken pots of the Old Kingdom (