eser had two tombs, one, the above-mentioned, near Abydos, the
other at Sakkara, in the Memphite pyramid-field. This is the famous
Step-Pyramid. Since Sa-nekht seems really to have been buried at Bet
Khal-laf, probably Tjeser was, too, and the Step-Pyramid may have been
his secondary or sham tomb, erected in the necropolis of Memphis as a
compliment to Seker, the Northern god of the dead, just as Aha had his
secondary tomb at Abydos in compliment to Khentamenti. Sne-feru, also,
the last king of the Hid Dynasty, seems to have had two tombs. One of
these was the great Pyramid of Medum, which was explored by Prof. Petrie
in 1891, the other was at Dashur. Near by was the interesting necropolis
already mentioned, in which was discovered evidence of the continuance
of the cramped position of burial and of the absence of mummification
among a certain section of the population even as late as the time of
the IVth Dynasty. This has been taken to imply that the fusion of the
primitive Neolithic and invading sub-Semitic races had not been effected
at that time.

With the IVth Dynasty the connection of the royal house with the South
seems to have finally ceased. The governmental centre of gravity was
finally transferred to Memphis, and the kings were thenceforth for
several centuries buried in the great pyramids which still stand in
serried order along the western desert border of Egypt, from the Delta
to the province of the Fayyum. With the latest discoveries in this
Memphite pyramid-field we shall deal in the next chapter.

The transference of the royal power to Memphis under the Hid Dynasty
naturally led to a great increase of Egyptian activity in the Northern
lands. We read in Manetho of a great Libyan war in the reign of
Neche-rophes, and both Sa-nekht and Tjeser seem to have finally
established Egyptian authority in the Sinaitic peninsula, where their
rock-inscriptions have been found.

In 1904 Prof. Petrie was despatched to Sinai by the Egypt Exploration
Fund, in order finally to record the inscriptions of the early kings
in the Wadi Maghara, which had been lately very much damaged by the
operations of the turquoise-miners. It seems almost incredible that
ignorance and vandalism should still be so rampant in the twentieth
century that the most important historical monuments are not safe from
desecration in order to obtain a few turquoises, but it is so. Prof.
Petrie's expedition did not start a day too soon, and at the sug