The pyramids of Gizeh belonged to the Pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty, and those of Abûsir to the Pharaohs of the Fifth. The five pyramids of Sakkarah, of which the plan is uniform, belonged to Ûnas and to the first four kings of the Sixth Dynasty, Teti, Pepi I., Merenra, and Pepi II., and are contemporary with the mastabas with painted vaults which I have mentioned above (p. 129). It is, therefore, no matter of surprise to find them inscribed and decorated. The ceilings are covered with stars, to represent the night-sky. The rest of the decoration is very simple. In the pyramid of Ûnas, which is the most ornamented, the decoration occupies only the end wall of the sepulchral chamber; the part against the sarcophagus was lined with alabaster, and engraved to represent great monumental doors, through which the deceased was supposed to enter his storerooms of provisions. The figures of men and of animals, the scenes of daily life, the details of the sacrifice, are not here represented, and, moreover, would not be in keeping; they belong to those places where the Double lived his public life, and where visitors actually performed the rites of offering; the passages and the vault in which the soul alone was free to wander needed no ornamentation except that which related to the life of the soul. The texts are of two kinds. One kind--of which there are the fewest--refer to the nourishment of the Double, and are literal transcriptions of the formulae by which the priests ensured the transmission of each object to the other world; this was a last resource for him, in case the real sacrifices should be discontinued, or the magic scenes upon the chapel walls be destroyed. The greater part of the inscriptions were of a different kind. They referred to the soul, and were intended to preserve it from the dangers which awaited it, in heaven and on earth. They revealed to it the sovereign incantations which protected it against the bites of serpents and venomous animals, the passwords which enabled it to enter into the company of the good gods, and the exorcisms which counteracted the influence of the evil gods. The destiny of the Double was to continue to lead the shadow of its terrestrial life, and fulfil it in the chapel; the destiny of the Soul was to follow the sun across the sky, and it, therefore, needed the instructions which it read on the walls of the vault. It was by their virtue that the absorption of the dead into Osiris became complete, and that they enjoyed hereafter all the immunity of the divine state. Above, in the chapel, they were men, and acted as men; here they were gods, and acted as gods.
The enormous rectangular mass which the Arabs call Mastabat el Faraûn, "the seat of Pharaoh" (fig. 141), stands beside the pyramid of Pepi II. Some have thought it to be an unfinished pyramid, some a tomb surmounted by an obelisk; in reality it is a pyramid which was left unfinished by its builder, King Ati of the Sixth Dynasty. Recent excavations have, on the other hand, shown that the brick pyramids of Dahshûr probably belonged to the Twelfth Dynasty. The stone pyramids of that group, which may be older, furnish a curious variation from the usual type. One of these stone pyramids has the lower half inclined at 54° 41', while the upper part changes sharply to 42° 59'; it might be called a mastaba ([Note 35][)] crowned by a gigantic attic. At Lisht, where the two pyramids now standing are of the same period (one of them was erected by Ûsertesen I.), the structure is again changed. The sloping passage ends in a vertical shaft, at the bottom of which open chambers now filled by the infiltration of the Nile. The pyramids of Illahûn and Hawara, which contained the remains of Ûsertesen II. and Amenemhat III., are of the same type as those at Lisht.
The custom of building pyramids did not end with the Twelfth Dynasty; there are later pyramids at Manfalût, at Hekalli to the south of Abydos, and at Mohammeriyeh to the south of Esneh. Until the Roman period, the semi-barbarous sovereigns of Ethiopia held it as a point of honour to give the pyramidal form to their tombs. The oldest, those of Nûrri, where the Pharaohs of Napata sleep, recall by their style the pyramids of Sakkarah; the latest, those of Meroë, present fresh characteristics. They are higher than they are wide, are built of small blocks, and are sometimes decorated at the angles with rounded borderings. The east face has a false window, surmounted by a cornice, and is flanked by a chapel, which is preceded by a pylon. These pyramids are not all dumb. As in ordinary tombs, the walls contain scenes borrowed from the "Ritual of Burial," or showing the vicissitudes of the life beyond the grave.
[3].--THE TOMBS OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE.
Excavated Tombs.
Two subsequent systems replaced the mastaba throughout Egypt. The first preserved the chapel constructed above ground, and combined the pyramid with the mastaba;
