tation.

Still, the monuments of his time are sufficient to tell us something of
the Egypt of his day, and of the amount and character of the
civilization so early attained by the Egyptian people. Besides his own
tablet in the Wady Magharah, there are in the neighbourhood of the
pyramids of Ghizeh a number of tombs which belong to the officials of
his court and the members of his family. These tombs contain both
sculptures and inscriptions, and throw considerable light on the
condition of the country.

In the first place, it is apparent that the style of writing has been
invented which is called hieroglyphical, and which has the appearance of
a picture writing, though it is almost as absolutely phonetic as any
other. Setting apart a certain small number of "determinatives," each
sign stands for a sound--the greater part for those elementary sounds
which we express by letters. An eagle is _a_, a leg and foot _b_, a
horned serpent _f_, a hand _t_, an owl _m_, a chicken _u_, and the like.
It is true that there are signs which express a compound sound, a whole
word, even a word of two syllables. A bowl or basin represents the sound
of _neb_, a hatchet that of _neter_, a guitar that of _nefer_, a
crescent that of _aah_, and so on. Secondly, it is clear that artistic
power is considerable. The animal forms used in the hieroglyphics--the
bee, the vulture, the uraeus, the hawk, the chicken, the eagle--are well
drawn. In the human forms there is less merit, but still they are fairly
well proportioned and have spirit. No rudeness or want of finish
attaches either to the writing or to the drawing of Sneferu's time; the
artists do not attempt much, but what they attempt they accomplish.

Next, we may notice the character of the tombs. Already the tomb was
more important than the house; and while every habitation constructed
for the living men of the time has utterly perished, scores of the
dwellings assigned to the departed still exist, many in an excellent
condition. They are stone buildings resembling small houses, each with
its door of entrance, but with no windows, and forming internally a
small chamber generally decorated with sculptures. The walls slope at an
angle of seventy-five or eighty degrees externally, but in the interior
are perpendicular. The roof is composed of large flat stones. Strictly
speaking, the chambers are not actual tombs, but mortuary chapels. The
embalmed body of the deceased, encased in its wooden co