t, one of which,
however, was demolished. There were also two steles at the grave of Qa.
So far only one stele had been found of Zet, and one of Mersekha, and
none appear to have survived of Zer, Den, or Azab. These steles seem to
have been placed at the east side of the tombs, and on the ground level,
and such of them as happened to fall down upon their inscribed faces
have generally been found in an excellent state of preservation.

Hence we must figure to ourselves two great steles standing up, side by
side, on the east of the tomb; and this is exactly in accord with the
next period that we know, in which, at Medum, Snofrui had two great
steles and an altar between them on the east of his tomb; and Rahotep
had two great steles, one on either side of the offering-niche, east
of his tomb. Probably the pair of obelisks of the tomb of Antef V., at
Thebes, were a later form of this system. Around the royal tomb stood
the little private steles of the domestics, placed in rows, thus forming
an enclosure about the king.

Some of Professor Petrie's most interesting work at Abydos was commenced
in November, 1902. In the previous season a part of the early town of
Abydos had been excavated, and it was found that its period began at the
close of the prehistoric age, and extended over the first few dynasties;
the connection between the prehistoric scale and historic reigns was
thus settled. The position of this town was close behind the site of the
old temples of Abydos, and within the great girdle-wall enclosure of the
twelfth dynasty, which stands about half a mile north of the well-known
later temples of Seti I. and Ramses II. This early town, being behind
the temples, or more into the sandy edge of the desert, was higher up;
the ground gently sloping from the cultivated land upward as a sandy
plain, until it reaches the foot of the hills, a couple of miles back.

The broad result of these new excavations is that ten different temples
can be traced on the same ground, though of about twenty feet difference
of level; each temple built on the ruins of that which preceded it,
quite regardless of the work of the earlier kings.

In such a clearance it was impossible to preserve all the structures.
Had Petrie and his companions avoided moving the foundations of the
twenty-sixth dynasty, they could never have seen much of the earlier
work; had they left the paving of the twelfth dynasty in place, they
must have sacrificed the obje