au
Musee de Boulaq_, pp. 347, 348, No. 5250).

Their pyramids, whose familiar designations we have deciphered in the
texts, have been uncovered at Saqqara, and the inscriptions which they
contain, reveal to us the names of the sovereigns who reposed within.
Unas, Teti III., Papi I., Mete-souphis I., and Papi II. now have as
clearly defined a personality for us as Ramses II. or Seti I.; even the
mummy of Metesouphis has been discovered near his sarcophagus, and can
be seen under glass in the Gizeh Museum. The body is thin and slender;
the head refined, and ornamented with the thick side-lock of boyhood;
the features can be easily distinguished, although the lower jaw has
disappeared and the pressure of the bandages has flattened the nose.
All the pyramids of the dynasty are of a uniform-type, the model being
furnished by that of Unas. The entrance is in the centre of the northern
facade, underneath the lowest course, and on the ground-level.
An inclined passage, obstructed by enormous stones, leads to an
antechamber, whose walls are partly bare, and partly covered with long
columns of hieroglyphs: a level passage, blocked towards the middle by
three granite barrier, ends in a nearly square chamber; on the left are
three low cells devoid of ornament, and on the right an oblong chamber
containing the sarcophagus.

[Illustration: 283.jpg PLAN OF THE PYRAMID OF UNAS]

From drawings by Maspero, _La Pyramide d'Ounas_, in the
_Recueil de Travaux_, vol. iv. p. 177.

These two principal rooms had high-pitched roofs. They were composed of
large slabs of limestone, the upper edges of which leaned one against
the other, while the lower edges rested on a continuous ledge which ran
round the chamber: the first row of slabs was surmounted by a second,
and that again by a third, and the three together effectively protected
the apartments of the dead against the thrust of the superincumbent
mass, or from the attacks of robbers. The wall-surfaces close to the
sarcophagus in the pyramid of Unas are decorated with many-coloured
ornaments and sculptured and painted doors representing the front of
a house: this was, in fact, the dwelling of the double, in which he
resided with the dead body.

[Illustration: 284.jpg THE SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER IN THE PYRAMID OF UNAS,
AND HIS SARCOPHAOUS]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph, taken in 1881, by Emil
Brugsch-Bey.

The inscriptions, like the pictures in the tombs, were