position of the bones could be but partly made out. The head was to the north, the body lay on its back, with the thighs spread out wide, and one hand by the hips.

Another of these burials was in a small hole covered by a flat stone. Two shells were under the left arm. No head was found. The shoulders were on the east, humeri pointed downwards, forearms prone; the legs were bent, the knees up and south of the backbone. The last three burials were close to the large group of mastabas.

A much disturbed group of majūr burial (178) is important as giving a dated object together with one of these majūrs, the copper (?) cylinder of User-kaf (Pl. XX, 30). These majūrs were probably within the area of a mastaba, but so little of the brickwork remained that it was not possible to say whether the mastaba was made over the graves containing the majūrs, or the graves cut through the brickwork of the mastaba. On the floor of the square well lay a fragment of a flint bracelet, and some pieces of green felspar, alabaster, and malachite. In the filling were fragments of Old Kingdom pottery, of a broken pottery cist, and of the rude pottery bars. In the small chamber to the south were three alabaster vessels of the usual shapes (X, 16 and 44), and a skeleton, contracted and lying on the left side. This well was presumably that of the mastaba of which the few patches of brickwork near were the remains. Just to the south of it lay the irregular grave in which the cylinder was found. Close to the surface lay two skeletons and a majūr, the pot was to the north; the two skeletons, both in the contracted position, and with heads to the north, faced one another. Below these was another skeleton, lying upon its right side, with head to the east; below it, and to the west, another, the skull of which lay crown downwards, the line of the body north and south. This was the only skull that could be got out unbroken; it was very weak, and in spite of very careful packing, was broken before it reached England. Below this were parts of two more skeletons, and there was another in the large majūr; further, leaning in the south-west corner at the bottom of the grave, was a sandstone slab, behind which was yet another contracted burial; the skeleton was on its left side, with the head to the north. The cylinder was below the first pair of skeletons. The other objects in the tomb were a IVth dynasty pot (35), an ivory comb and spatula, a shell and some green paint. This grave had evidently been to some extent disturbed, and it is just possible that the cylinder and the burials are not contemporaneous, but the simplest explanation is that they are, and that the grave was cut through the early mastaba. When I was clearing this tomb, Mr. (now Sir William) Richmond was sitting on the edge watching me, and we were both struck with the singular shape of the unbroken skull, the strong projection of the cheekbones reminding us of the Mongol type. No great weight can be attached to this observation, as measurements of the skull could not be taken, but I mention it as showing how important it may be that any unbroken skeleton found in a majūr should be preserved. The early date of these burials can hardly be doubted, but it has not yet been determined whether they belonged to the same race as do the ordinary Neolithic graves, the majūr being a cheap substitute for the wooden roof of the earlier time, or whether they belonged to some other element in the population, as the presence with them of the two illegible black cylinders would suggest.