nd porous red ware, and are
generally without lids.

In one instance (174) the cist was found between walls and beneath a
roof of sandstone blocks. The skeleton, which was young, as the
epiphyses were not united, lay on its left side, facing east, the head
north. A small shell, with chips of malachite, was before the face. In
another, the cist lay at the bottom of a square well, the body again
on its left side, with the head to the north, the knees brought up
before the face; the left elbow was by the side of the left hand
before the face, while the right arm lay over the head. There was a
little decayed linen cloth in the cist, and, near the hips, a shell.

In tomb No. 249 a _maj[=u]r_ and two cists lay upon the sloping bottom
of a long (3.70 m.) well; the _maj[=u]r_ was at the southern end,
which was lower by 60 cm. than the northern. In both cists the body
lay as in the two last-mentioned graves; one contained a sharp-edged
shallow bowl of red ware.

Another cist (316) lay at the bottom of a shallow well near the large
group of mastabas (1.50 m. by 1.10 m. by 1.60 deep). The sides of the
cist were broken down, and many of the bones were disturbed, but a
part of the spinal column and the legs sufficed to show that the body
had lain with the head north, but on its right side.

No. 312 has been already mentioned among the mastabas. The cist lay in
a small chamber, the body on its left side, with head to the north.

CHAPTER II.

DATE OF THE "NEW RACE" REMAINS.

14. The greatest interest of El Kab lay in the light that it shed on
the same civilisation which had been disclosed two years before at the
cemeteries of Naqada and Ballas. In these we had examined 3000 graves
of a type till then unknown, and as different from the graves of the
historic Egyptians as if they had come from China or Peru. The most
obvious characteristic of these burials was the position of the body,
which always lay in a contracted attitude, with the head to the south,
never at full length, as in all other Egyptian interments. All the
furniture of the graves--beads, slate palettes, green paint, ashes,
flint knives and pottery--were of novel types, and without any
admixture of the mirrors, ushabtis, scarabs, or any of the other
furniture of ordinary tombs. Hieroglyphic inscriptions were also
absent. The results of the excavations were published in "Naqada and
Ballas," and the main conclusions there set forth were that these
graves wer