MEIDUM— SAQQARAH. 



399 



polished stone better than any other. The seventeen similar structures which 

 are disposed in a line along the foot of the Libyan escarpment above the village of 

 Saqqarah, are all surpassed in elevation by the famous three-storied pyramid, 

 regarded by most Egyptologists as the most ancient of all. Its very form, 

 modelled on the outlines of numerous crags in the Libyan range, appears to have 

 been the primitive type of all these monuments. According to Mariette, it dates 

 from the first dynasty, and must consequently be at least sixty-five centuries old. 



Several of the recently opened Saqqarah pyramids have been thoroughly 

 explored, and were found to contain the tombs of some of the sovereigns of the 

 sixth dynasty. Square structures in the form of huge sepulchral blocks, standing 



Fig. 122. — Pyramid of Meidum. 



on the skirt of the Libyan cliffs, are the so-called mastaba, which are built over the 

 chambers of the dead here excavated in the live rock. The largest of these 

 sepulchral buildings, known to the Arabs by the name of Mastaba-el-Faraun, is 

 traditionally said to have been the seat from the summit of which the early 

 Egyptian monarchs proclaimed their will to the people. But the explorations 

 carried out on the spot have shown that it was the tomb of Unas, a high official of 

 the fifth dynasty. The tombs of this vast necropolis are divided into square groups 

 by streets running at right angles ; and Maspero suggests that the pyramids were 

 also disposed in some similar symmetrical order. Those of the first dynasties are 

 situated in the extreme north, those of the twelfth in the Fayum ; while between 



