The kings of the IVth Dynasty were the greatest of the pyramid builders, and to them belong the huge edifices of Griza. The Vth Dynasty favoured Abusîr, between Cîza and Sakkâra; the Vith, as we have said, preferred Sakkâra itself. With them the end of the Old Kingdom and of Memphite dominion was reached; the sceptre fell from the hands of the Memphite kings and was taken up by the princes of Herakleopolis (Ahnasyet el-Medina, near Béni Suêf, south of the Eayyûm) and Thebes. Where the Herakleopolite kings were buried we do not know; probably somewhere in the local necropolis of the Gebel es-Sedment, between Ahnasya and the Fayyûm. The first Thebans (the XIth Dynasty) were certainly buried at Thebes, but when the Herakleopolites had finally disappeared, and all Egypt was again united under one strong sceptre, the Theban kings seem to have been drawn northwards. They removed to the seat of the dominion of those whom they had supplanted, and they settled in the neighbourhood of Herakleopolis, near the fertile province of the Fayyûm, and between it and Memphis. Here, in the royal fortress-palace of Itht-taui, “Controlling the Two Lands,” the kings of the XIIth Dynasty lived, and they were buried in the nécropoles of Dashûr, Lisht, and Illahun (Hawara), in pyramids like those of the old Memphite kings. These facts, of the situation of Itht-taui, of their burial in the southern an ex of the old necropolis of Memphis, and of the fori of their tombs (the true Upper Egyptian and Thebian form was a rock-cut gallery and chamber driven deep into the hill), show how solicitous were the Amenemhats and Senusrets of the suffrages of Lower Egypt, how anxious they were to conciliate the ancient royal pride of Memphis.
Where the kings of the XIIIth Dynasty and the Hyksos or “Shepherds” were buried, we do not know. The kings of the restored Theban empire were all interred at Thebes. There are, in fact, no known royal sepulchres between the Fayyûm and Abydos. The great kings were mostly buried in the neighbourhood of Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes. The sepulchres of the “Middle Empire”—the XIth to XIIIth Dynasties—in the neighbourhood of the Fayyûm may fairly be grouped with those of the same period at Dashûr, which belongs to the necropolis of Memphis, since it is only a mile or two south of Sakkâra.
It is chiefly with regard to the sepulchres of the kings that the most momentous discoveries of recent years have been made at Thebes, and at Sakkâra, Abusîr, Dashûr, and Lisht, as at Abydos. For this reason we deal in succession with the finds in the nécropoles of Abydos, Memphis, and Thebes respectively. And with the sepulchres of the “Old Kingdom,” in the Memphite necropolis proper, we have naturally grouped those of the “Middle Kingdom” at Dashûr, Lisht, Illahun, and Hawara.
Some of these modern discoveries have been commented on and illustrated by Prof. Maspero in his great history. But the discoveries that have been made since this publication have been very important,—those at Abusîr, indeed, of first-rate importance, though not so momentous as those of the tombs of the Ist and IId Dynasties at Abydos, already described. At Abu Roash and at Gîza, at the northern end of the Memphite necropolis, several expeditions have had considerable success, notably those of the American Dr. Reisner, assisted by Mr. Mace, who excavated the royal tombs at Umm el-Ga’ab for Prof. Petrie, those of the German Drs. Steindorff and Borchardt,—the latter working for the Beutsch-Orient Gesellschaft,—and those of other American excavators. Until the full publication of the results of these excavations appears, very little can be said about them. Many mastaba-tombs have, it is understood, been found, with interesting remains. Nothing of great historical importance seems to have been discovered, however. It is otherwise when we come to the discoveries of Messrs. Borchardt and Schâfer at Abusîr, south of Gîza and north of Sakkâra. At this place results of first-rate historical importance have been attained.
The main group of pyramids at Abusir consists of the tombs of the kings Sahurà, Neferarikarâ, and Ne-user-Râ, of the Vth Dynasty. The pyramids themselves are smaller than those of Gîza, but larger than those of Sakkâra. In general appearance and effect they resemble those of Gîza, but they are not so imposing, as the desert here is low. Those of Gîza, Sakkâra, and Dashûr owe much of their impressiveness to the fact that they are placed at some height above the cultivated land. The excavation and planning of these pyramids were carried out by Messrs. Borchardt and Schâfer at the expense of Baron von Bissing, the well-known Egyptologist of Munich, and of the Deutsch-Orient Gesell-schaft of Berlin. The antiquities found have been divided between the museums of Berlin and Cairo.
One of the most noteworthy discoveries was that of the funerary temple of Ne-user-Râ, which stood at the base of his pyramid. The plan is interesting, and the granite lotus-bud columns found are the most ancient yet discovered in Egypt. Much of the paving and the wainscoting of the walls was of fine black marble, beautifully polished. An interesting find was a basin and drain with lion’s-head mouth, to carry away the blood of the sacrifices. Some sculptures in relief were discovered, including a gigantic representation of the king and the goddess Isis, which shows that in the early days of the Vth Dynasty the king and the gods were already depicted in exactly the same costume as they wore in the days of the Ramses and the Ptolemies. The hieratic art of Egypt had, in fact, now taken on itself the final outward appearance which it retained to the very end. There is no more of the archaism and absence of conventionality, which marks the art of the earliest dynasties.
We can trace by successive steps the swift development of Egyptian art from the rude archaism of the Ist Dynasty to its final consummation under the Vth, when the conventions became fixed. In the time of Khäsekhemui, at the beginning of the IId Dynasty, the archaic character of the art has already begun to wear off. Under the same dynasty we still have styles of unconventional naïveté, such as the famous Statue “No. 1” of the Cairo Museum, bearing the names of Kings Hetepahaui, Neb-râ, and Neneter. But with the IVth Dynasty we no longer look for unconventionality. Prof. Petrie discovered at Abydos a small ivory statuette of Khufu or Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Gîza. The portrait is a good one and carefully executed. It was not till the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, indeed, that the Egyptians ceased to portray their kings as they really were, and gave them a purely conventional type of face. This convention, against which the heretical King Amenhetep IV (Akhunaten) rebelled, in order to have himself portrayed in all his real ungainliness and ugliness, did not exist till long after the time of the IVth and Vth Dynasties.
The kings of the XIIth Dynasty especially were most careful that their statues should be accurate portraits; indeed, the portraits of Usertsen (Senusret) III vary from a young face to an old one, showing that the king was faithfully depicted at different periods of his life.