Besides these important objects, the vault contained, as we have said, an immense number of small articles, no description of which has yet been published. An explanation of the presence of all these mummies and their belongings in a single unpretentious vault, is not far to seek. In the reign of Rameses IX., of the twentieth dynasty, it was discovered that many tombs, including those of the Pharaoh Sevek-em-Saf and his queen Noubkhas had been forced and rifled by robbers, while others had been more or less damaged. An inquiry was held and some at least of the delinquents brought to justice. The "Abbott" and the "Amherst" papyri give accounts of the proceedings in full, together with the confession of one of the criminals.[411] These occurrences and the generally lawless condition of Thebes at the time seem to have led to the institution of periodical inspections of the royal tombs, and of the mummies which they contained. Minutes of these inspections, signed by the officer appointed to carry them out and two witnesses besides, are inscribed upon the shrouds and cases of the mummies. At first the inspectors shifted the deceased kings from tomb to tomb, the "house" of Seti I. being the favourite, apparently from its supposed security, but as the power of the monarchy declined, as disorders became more frequent and discipline more difficult to preserve, it appears to have been at last determined to substitute, as the burial-place of the royal line, a single, unornamented, easily concealed and guarded hole for the series of subterranean palaces which had shown themselves so unable to shield their occupants from insult and destruction. [411] See MASPERO, _Une Enquète Judiciare à Thèbes_, Paris, 1871, 4to. The Her-Hor family therefore were buried in one vault, and such of their great predecessors as had escaped the ghouls of the Western, Valley were gathered to their sides. INDEX. A Aah Hotep, i. 291. Aa-kheper-ra, _see_ Thothmes II. Abbeville, i. Prehistoric remains near, xxxix. Abd-al-latif, i. 223, 225; monolithic tabernacle at Memphis called _the green chamber_, 353; obelisk of Ousourtesen, ii. 172. Abd-el-Gournah, ii. 53. Abouna, i. 34. Abou-Roash, i. 165; pyramid of, 204. Abousir, i. 212; construction of pyramid at, _id._