Next comes a group of tombs with square wells, and chambers closed by a large block of stone, which tombs are probably mastabas, although the panelled brickwork was not found.
No. 42. A large square well, 200 m. to the N. of the town wall. Scattered in the earth were fragments of all the common coarse varieties of IVth dynasty pottery, and also of the bowl-like coffins ([XX], 5). The half of an ivory cylinder ([XX], 33) and the small black cylinder ([XX], 31), with an inscription which is, apparently, not Egyptian, were found amongst them; there was also a small slate dish, and the egg-shaped pot ([XII], 49).
No. 88, inside the town, was a well 2 metres deep. The chamber was closed by a large stone (1·00 m. × ·65 m.), but an entrance had been effected behind it. There remained in the chamber four stone bowls of the shapes so often found together ([X], 22, 39, 44, 48), and in the shaft were part of a majūr, and twenty-five coarse pots (nineteen of [XII], 23, two of 37, four of 31).
No. 101. A well, 3 metres deep, with chamber to the south, contained, with the regular coarse pottery, the less common shape [XII], 26, and also some fragments of the later Neolithic large vases (Naqada, XL, 40 or 46). Necks of these same vases were in No. 150 with the coarse pottery, and also one of the yellow clay dolls, about 15 cm. long, representing a woman with very long legs, and a great square-ended wig. These dolls are well known, and were supposed to be of the Middle Kingdom. There was no sign in this tomb of a secondary burial, so it may be that the dolls are even of the Old Kingdom.
No. 185. At 2·10 metres below the surface were the pieces of a small pottery cist, a majūr (complete), under which lay the body, in the contracted position, the head to the south, a stone bowl, and an ivory comb, together with a few beads, felspar discs, and shell-shaped beads of serpentine, apparently of Neolithic style. Forty cm. lower were some cylindrical beads in green glaze, and shells with the stains of green paint. In the earth above were scattered examples of the regular series of coarse pots ([XII], 23, 31, 35, 45).
No. 187, a well 3 metres deep, contained only an inverted pottery cist, inside which was a body lying upon the left side, with the head to the north.
No. 191, a well 2·50 metres deep, was peculiar in that it contained no chamber; the body was protected from the earth above by a double roof of sandstone slabs, supported on other slabs at the sides. The body was sharply bent up, the knees being nearly opposite the mouth; it lay on the left side with the head south. At the head stood an alabaster vase ([X], 31) of a late Neolithic shape. This tomb, but for its exceptional depth, might be classed among the Neolithic interments.
In No. 192 the body was in an abnormal position, for while the arms lay at full length, and the thighs in a line with the body, the knees were so sharply bent that heels and hips were in contact. The head was to the north, and the face east.
No. 204 was another square well with a chamber below, which had been closed by a thin brick wall; it contained a square, flat, slate palette, parts of a slate dish, and three pots of a Neolithic shape ([XI], 12).
No. 228 was a square well near a group of stairway tombs. In it were two burials, the first in a pottery cist placed in one corner of the well at 1·5 metres from the surface. The body was contracted, the head to the north; the only object placed with the body was a shell near the hips. Below this cist lay another body in a wooden box painted white. This also was in the sharply contracted Neolithic position, hands and knees both before the face; the head lay to the north, and the body was on its left side. Lower still in the well were pots of the coarse Old Kingdom types. Both these bodies, presumably, are secondary burials.