Chapter 4 (part 4)

10,221), where it is declared to have been found unviolated by the members of the Commission which was appointed to inquire into the condition of the royal tombs, after the robberies which had taken place in them about the period of the rule of the priest-kings of Thebes, B.C. 1,000. The remains of the tomb of Menthu-hetep III. have been recently discovered, 1 and though at the time of writing it has not been completely excavated, sufficient has been done to show that it is a very remarkable building. It is clear that the lower part of it is rectangular, and that it was surrounded by a colonnade; the outside is eased with limestone slabs, behind which is a "wall of rough and heavy nodules p. 9 of flint, and the middle is filled with rubbish and loose stones." On this rectangular building, or base, a small pyramid probably stood, at least, this is what we should expect. The remains already excavated prove that this base was surrounded by a triple row of columns, which supported a ceiling and formed a hypostyle passage or colonnade, which "must have been quite dark, or nearly so (like the ambulatories surrounding the shrines in later temples), for the outside was closed by a thick wall." Between this wall and the edge of the platform on which the building stood was an outer colonnade of square pillars, but the pillars no longer exist. In the rock below the pavement of this colonnade a number of tombs were hewn; each consisted of a pit from twelve to fifteen feet deep, which led to a small rectangular chamber, wherein originally stood a limestone sarcophagus. In these tombs women who were both priestesses of Hathor and members of the royal harim were buried, and further excavations will no doubt reveal the fact that Menthu-hetep's high officers of state were buried in somewhat similar tombs in the immediate neighbourhood of the remarkable monument which the Egypt Exploration Fund has brought to light through the exertion of Prof. E. Naville and Mr. H. R. Hall. The facts given above indicate that Menthu-hetep III. built a splendid tomb at Thebes, and it seems that in certain particulars he copied the royal pyramid tombs of the IVth, Vth, and VIth Dynasties. It is p. 10 unlikely that the superstructure which he set upon the rectangular base, to which reference has been made above, and which is assumed to have been in the form of a pyramid, was as large as any of the important pyramids of Giza, and the base on which it rested is "a new and interesting fact in Egyptian architecture"; but when he set his funeral monument on the rocky platform in the mountain of Tchesert it is more than probable that either he or his architect had in mind the rocky platform on which the great Pyramids of Giza stand, and it seems as if he built it on a massive rectangular base, so that it might appear conspicuous and imposing from a distance. Like the earlier royal builders of pyramids, Menthu-hetep built a funeral temple in connexion with his pyramid, and established an order of priests, who were to perform the services and ceremonies connected with his worship, and he allowed the ladies of his court to be buried round about it, just as did the kings of old who reigned at Memphis. The great feature of Menthu-hetep's monument, which has no parallel in the older pyramids in the north of Egypt, is the ramp, with a double row of square columns on each side of it, which he built on the front or eastern face of the temple platform. Now whilst Menthu-hetep III.