84. Steps to Upper Buildings on Hill.
the west, north, and east sides, but open on the south to the Nile plain, and not fully built out in this direction. In this space were buildings adjoining the wall all round; within them a main street around three sides of a square block of buildings in the middle; and minor streets subdividing the buildings. Then outside the wall on the west the town was enlarged by a further space, also walled, and divided by a long main street, and cross streets all the way along it. The larger houses all have a court, or atrium, with columns around the middle of it, and in the centre a small stone tank let into the ground with a square of limestone around it five feet each way. These columns were sometimes of stone, sometimes of wood; with a simple abacus, or with a carved palm capital; octagonal, or fluted, or ribbed; but they always had large circular stone bases, which mostly remain in place in the rooms. The roofing was usually of beams, overlaid with bundles of straw, and mud-plastered; but many arched roofs of brickwork remain, some entire, others with only the lower part. The doorways were always arched in brickwork, and we know now for certain that the arch was not only known, but was in constant use by the early Egyptians.
85. Basket with Tools. 1: 7.
In the rooms pottery was often found; and many parts of the town having been deserted when the building of the pyramid was finished, the empty rooms were used as rubbish holes by the inhabitants who remained; in such places there might be even six or eight feet depth of broken pottery, woodwork and other things. Tools
86. Castanets and Figure of Dancer.