070 THE EXCAVATION?^ AT ABUSIR, EGYPT. 



place, inclosed by the walls of a Roman fortress, survived it. Ancient 

 Memphis likewise experienced a shifting of its principal center, the 

 change of position being traced b}^ the locations of the pyramids, for 

 the Pharaohs liked to build their homes not far from their future 

 burial places. Thus, at Thebes, the royal palace of Amenophis III 

 was within the precinct of the necropolis, and the same custom wns 

 also observed at Memphis, as proved by the discovery of the remains 

 of a ro3'al palace l)eneath the foundations of a temple in the grave- 

 yard city. From the location of the pyramids and the succession of 

 their builders it can be inferred that Memphis as a rule spread from 

 north to south, though occasionally for a brief period the course was 

 in the opposite, direction. The site of the principal temple alone 

 remained unchanged, though lesser sanctuaries to the same god might 

 elsewhere, be erected. Thus the temple of Ptah, the local divinity 

 of Memphis who was widely l)elieved to have created and to rule the 

 world, lay between the Nile and the village of Sakkarah, while other 

 sanctuaries, dedicated to the same god, arose in other parts of the cit3^ 

 Near the present villages of Cxizeh and Sakkarah lie the two necrop- 

 olis districts of Memphis which have been most assiduously investi- 

 gated by modern explorers and whose monuments produce a most 

 imposing impression. A visit to these places is part of the stated 

 programme of most travelers in Egypt. One frequently gets also a 

 view of other monuments of the graveyard cit}' that are situated 

 more to the north and the south, between the above localities. Those 

 to the north belong to the oldest remains of the kings resident in Mem- 

 phis, while to the south are buried the rulers of the twelfth dynasty, 

 who lived about a thousand years later. In the pyramids of Gizeh 

 mummies of princes of the fourth dynast}' were interred, while in those 

 of Sakkarah the}^ were chief!}' of the sixth dynasty. The pyramids 

 of Abusir, between Gizeh and Sakkarah, were constructed under the 

 fifth dynast}^ and for a long time were believed to offer little reward 

 to the visitor; for althougli a few isolated and l)eautiful graves were 

 found in their neighborhood, they had l)ecome covered again by the 

 sand, so that tourists found here little worth seeing. This circumstance 

 was an advantage to the necropolis, for absence of strangers means 

 also freedom from that petty plunder of antiquities dependent on 

 daily sales which is, on the. whole, more fatal to the monuments than 

 the wholesale removal of plundered objects to be sold at a distance. 

 As a result little excavating has been done here by the Arabs, and as 

 the connections with Cairo are inconvenient, not nmch scientific explo- 

 ration has been carried on. And yet such a work would have l)een 

 profitable, as proved by the results of the excavations made by the 

 Germans in the field of ruins during the last few years and which are 

 briefly described in the following pages. 



