ies, and on an ivory plaque from the royal tomb of
Naqada, Dr. Borchardt has pointed out the name of Menes himself.

The objects from this tomb are now exposed in the museum at Ghizeh,
and it is interesting to observe that the pottery, the slate palettes,
and the flint knives are distinctly of the _later_ type of Ballas.

It has, then, become now fairly clear that the earliest known
inhabitants of Egypt were a tall, fair race akin to the modern
Kabyles. They buried their dead in a contracted position with the head
to the south, and in the earliest times either mutilated the dead
before burial, or kept the bodies for a long time before the final
burial. The relative dates of the different varieties of their tombs
can be made out, and the graves with mutilated bodies found at Naqada
are much earlier than those at Abydos containing the names of I-II
dynasty kings. At some period which we cannot yet date, even on the
rough scale of Libyan pottery, another race or races entered the
country, bringing with them writing, the practice of mummification,
the art of building in brick with recessed panels, and perhaps, as M.
de Morgan suggests, metals. Thus was formed the Egyptian people of
historic times.

18. A point that has not been explained is the different position of
the bodies in the open graves and in the stairway tombs. In the
former, the head lies south; in the stairways and in the graves of
Medum, it is to the north.

The burials, too, under the large pots which we call _maj[=u]rs_, are
not understood, nor is their exact period known. As they were found in
the later cemeteries of Ballas, El Kab, and Kom el Ahmar, but not at
Naqada, it seems likely that they belong to the later division of the
Libyan period, viz., after the Egyptian invasion, perhaps even after
the time of Menes. But to which race, if to either, is not clear.

CHAPTER III.

MIDDLE KINGDOM CEMETERY.

19. Inside the town walls, never outside, were found a few examples of
a distinct type of tomb, with underground brick arches, pottery akin
to that of the usual XIIth dynasty, but not identical with it, and
stone vases of distinctive shapes. The types of pottery are shown in
PL. X, 1-28, the alabaster vases in X, 1-6.

In PL. XXIV some walls in broken line are seen which cut through the
walls of three mastabas, which last are shown in dead black. The tombs
in question lay parallel with these walls, some within the square
chambers, some also