bristled with citadels,
where the monarchs lived and kept watch over the lands subject to their
authority: other fortresses were established wherever any commanding
site--such as a narrow part of the river, or the mouth of a defile
leading into the desert--presented itself. All were constructed on
the same plan, varied only by the sizes of the areas enclosed, and the
different thickness of the outer walls. The outline of their ground-plan
formed a parallelogram, whose enclosure wall was often divided into
vertical panels easily distinguished by the different arrangements of
the building material. At El-Kab and other places the courses of crude
brick are slightly concave, somewhat resembling a wide inverted arch
whose outer curve rests on the ground. In other places there was a
regular alternation of lengths of curved courses, with those in which
the courses were strictly horizontal. The object of this method of
structure is still unknown, but it is thought that such building offers
better resistance to shocks of earthquake. The most ancient fortress
at Abydos, whose ruins now lie beneath the mound of Kom-es-Sultan, was
built in this way. Tombs having encroached upon it by the time of the
VIth dynasty, it was shortly afterwards replaced by another and similar
fort, situate rather more than a hundred yards to the south-east;
the latter is still one of the best-preserved specimens of military
architecture dating from the times immediately preceding the first
Theban empire.*

* My first opinion was that the second fortress had been
built towards the time of the XVIIIth dynasty at the
earliest, perhaps even under the XXth. Further consideration
of the details of its construction and decoration now leads
me to attribute it to the period between the VIth and XIIth
dynasties.

[Illustration: 302.jpg THE SECOND FORTRESS OF ABYDOS--THE
SHUNET-EZ-ZEBIB--AS SEEN FROM THE EAST]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.
Modern Arabs call it Shunet-ez-Zebib, the storehouse of
raisins.

The exterior is unbroken by towers or projections of any kind, and
consists of four sides, the two longer of which are parallel to each
other and measure 143 yards from east to west: the two shorter sides,
which are also parallel, measure 85 yards from north to south. The outer
wall is solid, built in horizontal courses, with a slight batter, and
decorated by vertical grooves, which at