wn
to the burial chamber; the chamber, too, was very large (7 m. square).
The recessed brickwork remained on the west side, and the passage
which led to the niche on the east side can still be traced. The
clearing of this tomb formed a tedious task for six men during three
weeks, and nothing important was found. A pot (X, 29), found inside
the great chamber, suggested that it had been entered during the
XVIIIth dynasty, and three alabaster vases (28 cm. high) were most
probably canopic jars from some late burial. This tomb is a prominent
object to anyone looking north from the El Kab wall, and has the
appearance of a natural mound.

Another stairway tomb was remarkable for the great number of coarse
limestone and alabaster vertical jars which were piled at the bottom
of the stair. There were 150 of these, but nothing else in the tomb,
except a few pieces from a bowl of brown incised ware (XX, 1),
somewhat like the rare incised pottery found at Naqada.

Staircase 8 contained a stand of coarse pottery and a small coarse
saucer (XII, 31, 44), the rough handmade vase (XII, 23), fragments of
large water-jars of better ware, and two alabaster bowls, one of the
sharp-edged type (XI, 33), the other of the common shape, drawn in at
the mouth (XI, 44); there were also two mud jar-seals of flat
saucer-like shape.

In Stairway 9 the sides of the shaft had been plastered with mud. The
stone door of the burial chamber was still standing, the robbers
having apparently found it easier to force their way through the
comparatively soft earth above the great slab. We were frequently able
to trace their mode of entrance, and found that they sank their shafts
at the deep end of the stairway, never clearing the long flight of
steps. This would seem to show that the robberies took place while
this method of burial was remembered. This tomb contained fragments of
one of the large hemispherical pots used as coffins (_maj[=u]rs_), and
pieces of a large jar of polished red ware, the lines of polish on
which run lengthways; this ware again cannot be distinguished from
the Libyan. There was also a vertical jar of veined marble, the
horizontally-pierced handle of a typical Libyan stone vase, an
alabaster bowl and a vase (X, 43), with a couple of coarse pottery
bowls of IVth dynasty type (XII, 37).

Stairway 10 contained only the coarse pottery, but the common jars
(XII, 23) bore a series of simple marks made before firing (XVIII,
21-4, and a t