f the ground belonging to the
tomb. This mixed form was much employed in Theban cemeteries from the
beginning of the Middle Empire. Many kings and nobles of the Eleventh
Dynasty were buried at Drah Abu'l Neggeh, in tombs like those of Abydos
(fig. 147). The relative proportion of mastaba and pyramid became modified
during the succeeding centuries. The mastaba--often a mere insignificant
substructure--gradually returned to its original height, while the pyramid
as gradually decreased, and ended by being only an unimportant pyramidion
(fig. 148). All the monuments of this type which ornamented the Theban
necropolis during the Ramesside period have perished, but contemporary
tomb-paintings show many varieties, and the chapel of an Apis which died
during the reign of Amenhotep III. still remains to show that this fashion
extended as far as Memphis. Of the pyramidion, scarcely any traces remain;
but the mastaba is intact. It is a square mass of limestone, raised on a
base, supported by four columns at the corners, and surmounted by an
overhanging cornice; a flight of five steps leads up to the inner chamber
(fig. 149).

[Illustration: Fig. 149.--Section of Apis tomb, _tempo_ Amenhotep III.]

The earliest examples of the second kind are those found at Gizeh among the
mastabas of the Fourth Dynasty, and these are neither large nor much
ornamented. They begin to be carefully wrought about the time of the Sixth
Dynasty, and in certain distant places, as at Bersheh, Sheikh Said, Kasr es
Said, Asuan, and Negadeh. The rock-cut tomb did not, however, attain its
full development until the times of the last Memphite kings and the early
kings of the Theban line.

In these rock-cut tombs we find all the various parts of the mastaba. The
designer selected a prominent vein of limestone, high enough in the cliff
side to risk nothing from the gradual rising of the soil, and yet low
enough for the funeral procession to reach it without difficulty. The
feudal lords of Minieh slept at Beni Hasan; those of Khmunu at Bersheh;
those of Siut and Elephantine at Siut and in the cliff opposite Asuan (fig.
150). Sometimes, as at Siut, Bersheh, and Thebes, the tombs are excavated
at various levels; sometimes, as at Beni Hasan, they follow the line of the
stratum, and are ranged in nearly horizontal terraces.[31] A flight of
steps, rudely constructed in rough-hewn stones, leads up from the plain to
the entrance of the tomb. At Beni Hasan and Thebes, th