The necropolis of Siout, in the Libyan chain, offers the same general characteristics. The tomb of Hapi-Tefa, a feudal prince of the twelfth dynasty, and consequently a contemporary of those princes of the nome of Meh who are buried at Beni-Hassan, is the most remarkable. It is composed of three large chambers communicating one with another, and with the external air by a wide portico. The mummy-pit is reached from the innermost of these chambers.
Fig. 168.—Interior of a tomb at Beni-Hassan.
Drawn in perspective from the elevation of Lepsius (i. pl. 60).
Neither statues, mummies, nor any other movable objects have been found in these grottos. When their accessible situation and their conspicuous appearance is remembered, this should not cause surprise. Many centuries ago the acacia doors, which are mentioned in one of the texts at Beni-Hassan, disappeared, and, in spite of the accumulation of sand, the mouths of the wells could be found so easily, and could so readily be cleared, that all objects of value and interest must have been abstracted from the mummy-chambers in very remote times, perhaps before the fall of the antique civilization. The inscriptions and the painted walls alone remained practically intact down to the commencement of the present century. The dryness of the climate, and the difficulty of detaching them from the wall contributed to their preservation, which was nowhere more complete than at Beni-Hassan. But since travelling in Egypt became the fashion their sufferings have begun. The mania for carving names upon every surface, and for preserving souvenirs of all places of interest, has destroyed the whole of one wall. The smoke of torches has also done its work in reducing the brilliant tones and blunting the delicate contours. Happily, the more interesting examples are all reproduced in those great works to which we have already had such frequent occasion to refer.
Fig. 169.—Plan of the above tomb.
The rich necropolis of Thebes has not preserved any monuments from this period in such good condition as those of Abydos, Beni-Hassan, or Siout. M. Maspero has discovered, however, in the district known as the Drah-Aboul-Neggah, some remains of the royal tombs of the eleventh dynasty. Several of these tombs resemble in their general arrangements those of the feudal princes of Meh and Siout. Thus the sepulchre of the King Ra-Anoub-Khoper-Entef is what the Greeks called a hemi-speos, that is, it was partly built and partly hollowed out of the living rock. Before the façade thus built against the mountain, two obelisks were reared. The tombs of the other princes belonging to the family of Entef were built upon the open plain. They were structures in masonry, and seem at one time to have been crowned by pyramids. Some idea of their shape may be obtained from our illustrations of the tombs at Abydos.[238]
Fig. 170.—Chess players, Beni-Hassan. (Champollion, pl. 369.)
To complete our observations upon the tombs of the first Theban Empire, it will be sufficient to recall what we have already said about the pyramids in the Fayoum, which were the work of the thirteenth dynasty. It is difficult to form an accurate idea of the appearance of those monuments when complete. Time has treated them with great severity, and in their present state it is impossible to verify the assertions of Herodotus as to the peculiarities of their casing and crowning ornaments. But it is quite certain that the Middle Empire made no original inventions in the matter of sepulchral architecture. It appears to have discontinued some of the ancient arrangements, but in those which it preserved its efforts were confined to putting old elements together in a new fashion and with new proportions. It made frequent use of one mode of sepulture which had previously been quite exceptional. No mastaba is known which dates from this epoch, but the kings had not ceased to confide their mummies and the perpetuation of their glory to pyramids, but these were no longer of such colossal dimensions as under the Ancient Empire, while their character was complicated, to some extent, by the colossi with which they are said to have been surmounted, and the figured decoration of their walls. Finally, they were often employed, not as self-contained monuments in themselves, but merely as the culminating points in a more complex ensemble. They were built upon a rectangular platform or tower with walls slightly inclined from the perpendicular.