Around the Pyramids from Abouraash, north of Gizeh to Medum, south of Sakkara, a distance of over 15 miles, forming the Necropolis of Memphis, numberless smaller sepulchres are found, which appear to have been appropriated to private individuals, as the pyramids were—so far as we can ascertain—reserved for kings, or, at all events, for persons of royal blood. These tombs are now known under the term of mastabas, to which we have already referred. The mastaba is a rectangular building varying in size from 15 to 150 ft. in width and length, and from 10 to 80 ft. in height. Their general form is that of a truncated pyramid with an angle of 75° to the horizon, low, and looking exceedingly like a house with sloping walls, with only one door leading to the interior, though they may contain several apartments, and no attempt is made to conceal the entrance. The chambers consist (1) of reception rooms and (2) of serdabs, which are closed cells containing the terra-cotta statuettes which represent the Ka’s or doubles of the deceased. These chambers occupy a part only of the mastaba, the remainder being solid masonry or brickwork. The body seems to have been hidden from profanation by being hid in a pit sunk in the rock, the entrance to which was concealed, and could be approached only through the solid core of the mastaba. Unlike the pyramids, the walls are covered with the paintings above alluded to, and everything in this “eternal dwelling”[38] of the dead is made to resemble the abodes of the living; as was afterwards the case with the Etruscans. It is owing to this circumstance that we are able not only to realise so perfectly the civil life of the Egyptians at this period, but to fix the dates of the whole series by identifying the names of the kings who built the pyramids with those on the walls of the tombs that surround them.[39]