is impossible here to go into
the philological basis of the identification of Mn and Menes. The
final conclusion is this: In Neggadeh, we have before us the tomb of
the oldest king of whom the Egyptians had preserved any memory, and
whom they considered the founder of the Egyptian monarchy.

In consideration of the importance of the questions involved, a short
description of the tomb of Menes and of the objects found in it will
certainly be of interest. The second part of De Morgan's book,
"Recherche sur les origines de l'Egypte," which has just appeared,
furnishes us with the facts concerning the tomb, and the objects found
in the tomb I will describe from the originals in the Gizeh Museum.

The tomb consists of a large building, standing alone, measuring 54 X
27 m. (about 100 X 50 Egyptian ells), and built of burned brick. The
outside walls were ornamented, as was usual in later Egyptian
buildings, with pilasters composed of groups of smaller rectangular
pilasters. It is the same motive so often to be observed in the sham
doors in tombs of the old kingdom, and is really the most natural
facade ornamentation for brick buildings, as it may be made by simply
setting every alternate column of bricks forward or backward. The
walls were, in addition, plastered. Back of the thick outside wall on
each side lay a row of narrow rectangular rooms, formed by dividing a
corridor by means of cross walls. Inside this surrounding row of rooms
was the real tomb, a building with thick walls and five rooms in a
row. The middle one of these rooms, noticeably larger than the others,
is the real burial chamber. These five rooms were originally connected
by doors which were afterward walled up. As to the roof, we can only
make surmises, as the excavator has furnished us with no material on
this point. The walls as they now stand are at the highest point about
four meters high, and thus may form only the lower part of the
building. Whether the roof was an arch of stone or simply of wood, is
uncertain; but it seems to me probable that it was of wood. For the
tomb contained a layer of ashes in which all the objects put in the
grave with the dead man were found; and, assuming that the roof was of
wood, it is possible that the roof was set on fire at the time when
the tomb was robbed and that the ashes came from this fire. The
explanation which the excavator gives of these ashes, that the body
and the offerings were burned in the closed grave,