certain solution can be given of the question of the date of
the great wall. Reasons for thinking it to be the work of Usertesen II
have been already given, but several attempts were made to test this
hypothesis. The base of the wall was cleared at several points to
search for any accumulation of rubbish left by the builders, and all
the gateways were examined for foundation deposits. In the east gate,
at a height of 3 feet above the stone pavement, there was a layer of
potsherds, painted with a rough decoration of comma-shaped dashes, and
with them were some fragments of an ostracon written in late demotic.
This would show that the gateway was already partly ruined and blocked
in Roman (?) times. And between the row of mastabas to the north and
the great wall were found the foot of an ushabti, perhaps of the
XXVIth dynasty, and a pot (PL. XX, 13), probably Roman. The first was
on the ground level, the second 5 feet above it. But the position of
these objects only shows that the sand-heap had not reached its
present level when they were dropped, and I observed nothing quite
inconsistent with the early date suggested. It should be added,
however, that the stonework of the gates and the arch in the north
wall seem, to Mr. Somers Clarke's experienced eye, to show some
features of a much later style. These he will describe in his own
work on El Kab.

28. A group of late bronzes were found at one point in the south of
the great enclosure. They were 800 in number, each mounted on a little
wooden base. One (PL. V, 3) was a fine piece, representing Nekheb
adored by a kneeling figure. The rest were Osiris figures, except one,
which represented Imhetep. About a hundred were 5 inches high, or
upwards, of fair workmanship, made in thin bronze cast on a core.
They were all piled together in a space 1.1 m. by .6 m., not near to
any tomb.

29. Near the south-east corner of the town (PL. XXIV) was a peculiar
brick building, consisting of four rows of brick pillars, six in each
row, enclosed in a surrounding wall. The pillars were about 2 m. square,
the passages between them only about .80 m. wide. The actual height of
the brickwork was 1.50 m. or less, but the building may have been a high
one, for the base of a brick staircase remained between two of the
pillars. Throughout the building were great numbers of pots, chiefly
broken, of a long bottle-shape with a wide mouth, and pierced at the
bottom, with a hole an inch wide (XX, 14);