216 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1914., 
two niches are made in the east side. In one coffin, the east side 
of which alone is here shown, the central panels are covered with 
a series of slabs; these are rounded at the ends and do not, as one 
would expect, butt against or mortise into the uprights; this suggests 
that they are in imitation of a door.’ [Similar coffins were subse- 
quently found by Professor Flinders Petrie in a contemporary cemetery 
on the opposite bank of the river. | 
‘When the east side of the coffin is taken away the body appears, 
sharply contrasted, with head to the north and face east. The limbs 
are swathed in linen bands, and masses of linen folded together lie 
above the body. There was some little evidence of an attempt at 
mummification, but no flesh remained on the bones; those of the 
arm lay free inside a wide cylinder of wrappings, which retained the 
shape of the limb. The preservation of these coffins and bodies was 
partial; some of the wood was quite sound, other pieces could not be 
moved. So of the cloth; some had been eaten by white ants, but 
some was in admirable preservation. 
“About fifty skeletons and parts of skeletons were found in fair 
condition, and these, happily, owing to the visit of Professor Elliot 
Smith, could be carefully examined, some of them before they had 
been touched. 
“In one only of all these four hundred tombs have paintings been 
found, but this is of very considerable interest, and the paintings are 
so extensive that our time for a whole season has been mainly 
occupied in copying them. This is the tomb of Hesy. 
‘The panels of Hesy have been, for more than forty years, in 
the Museum; they were brought there by Mariette, who discovered 
them and attributed them, correctly, to the Third Dynasty.’ 
These quotations from Mr. Quibell’s report will make it clear 
that we are dealing with the remains of the very people who were 
responsible for technical inventions of far-reaching importance in the 
history, not merely of Egyptian craftsmanship, but of that of the 
whole world. This series of tombs reveals the stages in the acquisi- 
tion of the means of cutting out extensive rock tombs; and it is a 
matter of considerable significance to determine the precise racial 
characteristics of the people who invented and were the first to practise 
these arts and crafts which were destined to exert so profound an 
influence on the world’s culture. 
The crucial importance of the human remains buried in these 
tombs depends upon the fact that the earliest bodies hitherto found 
in Lower Egypt (exclusive of those brought to light at Turah in the 
winter of 1909-1910 by Professor Hermann Junker, and described by 
Dr. Derry, to which reference will be made later) belonged to a later 
period-—Fourth to Sixth Dynasties—and revealed undoubted evidence 
of considerable alien admixture, such as does not occur, except in rare 
sporadic instances, in the earlier remains from Upper Egypt. The 
problem for solution was the determination of when and how this 
process of racial admixture began. 
The contemporary and earlier material found by Professor Junker 
upon the opposite (east) bank of the river, and a little further north, 
