wn in the top of PL. XII. These
pots were also found in the passages between mastabas, and fragments
of them in very great quantities were scattered over the tombs,
especially over those of the "stairway" type. This suggests that the
coarse pottery was used, not in the interment, but for the offerings
brought by relatives to the tombs. They were placed, probably,
opposite the niches, and when they became inconveniently numerous,
were thrown away over the tomb wall. Several hundreds of these pots
were found, heaped together, behind two mastabas to the north of the
wall (PL. VII, C, D).

The tomb had been robbed. Fragments of one of the large, circular,
bowl coffins (XX, 5) were scattered through the earth all down the
shaft, and the great slab which had closed the door was thrown over
at the bottom of the well. The chamber was empty, but under the flat
stone were found fragments of a slate dish, of an alabaster table, and
of four diorite bowls. Of one of these, the largest I have seen (PL.
II, 1), more than two-thirds of the pieces remained; it was inscribed,
in neat, deep characters, _suten biti Sneferu_, the name of the king
being written without the cartouche. In this tomb was also one of the
coarse bars of pottery that I have found both in Old Kingdom and in
Neolithic tombs, the use of which is by no means clear. They were,
when complete, about 2 feet 6 inches long, and 4 inches thick; they
are flat on one side, rounded on the other. The sides of one Neolithic
tomb at Ballas were lined with bars of this kind. In another, the body
was sheltered by a large inverted dish resting upon several of them;
frequently fragments of two or three were found in a tomb. Perhaps
they were used as supports for the coffin.

In tomb No. 312, which was probably a mastaba, though the walls were
not observed, the well was but 2 metres deep. The chamber was at the
west, and was just large enough to contain the pottery coffin and a
few pots. The coffin was of the short type (3 feet long); the body lay
on its left side, crouched up, head to the N., and face E. One bone
from the foot lay outside the coffin at the foot end, where also lay
a small bowl of diorite, part of another in limestone, bracelets in
shell and horn, an ivory hairpin, and a shell containing green paint.
Through the earth in the tomb-shaft were scattered a large number of
coarse pots (PL. XII, two of 41, 45, 43, a hundred and four of 22,
more than a hundred of 31).

In