It is remarkable that Manetho chronicles among the kings of the early period a king named Sesokhris, who was five cubits high. This may have been Sa-nekht.
Tjeser had two tombs, one, the above-mentioned, near Abydos, the other at Sakkâra, in the Memphite pyramid-field. This is the famous Step-Pyramid. Since Sa-nekht seems really to have been buried at Bêt Khal-laf, probably Tjeser was, too, and the Step-Pyramid may have been his secondary or sham tomb, erected in the necropolis of Memphis as a compliment to Seker, the Northern god of the dead, just as Aha had his secondary tomb at Abydos in compliment to Khentamenti. Sne-feru, also, the last king of the Hid Dynasty, seems to have had two tombs. One of these was the great Pyramid of Mêdûm, which was explored by Prof. Petrie in 1891, the other was at Dashûr. Near by was the interesting necropolis already mentioned, in which was discovered evidence of the continuance of the cramped position of burial and of the absence of mummification among a certain section of the population even as late as the time of the IVth Dynasty. This has been taken to imply that the fusion of the primitive Neolithic and invading sub-Semitic races had not been effected at that time.
With the IVth Dynasty the connection of the royal house with the South seems to have finally ceased. The governmental centre of gravity was finally transferred to Memphis, and the kings were thenceforth for several centuries buried in the great pyramids which still stand in serried order along the western desert border of Egypt, from the Delta to the province of the Fayyum. With the latest discoveries in this Memphite pyramid-field we shall deal in the next chapter.
The transference of the royal power to Memphis under the Hid Dynasty naturally led to a great increase of Egyptian activity in the Northern lands. We read in Manetho of a great Libyan war in the reign of Neche-rophes, and both Sa-nekht and Tjeser seem to have finally established Egyptian authority in the Sinaitic peninsula, where their rock-inscriptions have been found.
In 1904 Prof. Petrie was despatched to Sinai by the Egypt Exploration Fund, in order finally to record the inscriptions of the early kings in the Wadi Maghara, which had been lately very much damaged by the operations of the turquoise-miners. It seems almost incredible that ignorance and vandalism should still be so rampant in the twentieth century that the most important historical monuments are not safe from desecration in order to obtain a few turquoises, but it is so. Prof. Petrie’s expedition did not start a day too soon, and at the suggestion of Sir William Garstin, the adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, the majority of the inscriptions have been removed to the Cairo Museum for safety and preservation. Among the new inscriptions discovered is one of Sa-nekht, which is now in the British Museum. Tjeser and Sa-nekht were not the first Egyptian kings to visit Sinai. Already, in the days of the 1st Dynasty, Semerkha had entered that land and inscribed his name upon the rocks. But the regular annexation, so to speak, of Sinai to Egypt took place under the Memphites of the Hid Dynasty.
With the Hid Dynasty we have reached the age of the pyramid-builders. The most typical pyramids are those of the three great kings of the IVth Dynasty, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, at Giza near Cairo. But, as we have seen, the last king of the Hid Dynasty, Snefru, also had one pyramid, if not two; and the most ancient of these buildings known to us, the Step-Pyramid of Sakkâra, was erected by Tjeser at the beginning of that dynasty. The evolution of the royal tombs from the time of the 1st Dynasty to that of the IVth is very interesting to trace. At the period of transition from the predynastic to the dynastic age we have the great mastaba of Aha at Nakâda, and the simplest chamber-tombs at Abydos. All these were of brick; no stone was used in their construction. Then we find the chamber-tomb of Den Semti at Abydos with a granite floor, the walls being still of brick. Above each of the Abydos tombs was probably a low mound, and in front a small chapel, from which a flight of steps descended into the simple chamber. On one of the little plaques already mentioned, which were found in these tombs, we have an archaic inscription, entirely written in ideographs, which seems to read, “The Big-Heads (i. e. the chiefs) come to the tomb.” The ideograph for “tomb” seems to be a rude picture of the funerary chapel, but from it we can derive little information as to its construction. Towards the end of the Ist Dynasty, and during the lid, the royal tombs became much more complicated, being surrounded with numerous chambers for the dead slaves, etc. Khâsekhemui’s tomb has thirty-three such chambers, and there is one large chamber of stone. We know of no other instance of the use of stone work for building at this period except in the royal tombs. No doubt the mason’s art was still so difficult that it was reserved for royal use only.
Under the Hid Dynasty we find the last brick mastabas built for royalty, at Bêt Khallâf, and the first pyramids, in the Memphite necropolis. In the mastaba of Tjeser at Bêt Khallâf stone was used for the great portcullises which were intended to bar the way to possible plunderers through the passages of the tomb. The Step-Pyramid at Sakkâra is, so to speak, a series of mastabas of stone, imposed one above the other; it never had the continuous casing of stone which is the mark of a true pyramid. The pyramid of Snefru at Mêdûm is more developed. It also originated in a mastaba, enlarged, and with another mastaba-like erection on the top of it; but it was given a continuous sloping casing of fine limestone from bottom to top, and so is a true pyramid. A discussion of recent theories as to the building of the later pyramids of the IVth Dynasty will be found in the next chapter.
In the time of the Ist Dynasty the royal tomb was known by the name of “Protection-around-the-Hawk, i.e. the king”(Sa-ha-heru); but under the Hid and IVth Dynasties regular names, such as “the Firm,” “the Glorious,” “the Appearing,” etc., were given to each pyramid.