The columns are surmounted by a small square slab, technically called an abacus, and heavy square beams or architraves span the spaces between the columns, while the roof between the architraves has a slightly segmental form. The tombs of the later period, viz. of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, are very different from those of the twelfth dynasty, and present few features of architectural interest, though they are remarkable for their vast extent and the variety of form of their various chambers and galleries. They consist of a series of chambers excavated in the rock, and it appears certain that the tomb was commenced on the accession of each monarch, and was driven farther and farther into the rock during the continuance of his reign till his death, when all work abruptly ceased. All the chambers are profusely decorated with paintings, but of a kind very different from those of the earlier dynasties. Instead of depicting scenes of ordinary life, all the paintings refer to the supposed life after death, and are thus of very great value as a means of determining the religious opinions of the Egyptians at this time. One of the most remarkable of these tombs is that of Manephthah or Sethi I., at Bab-el-Molouk, and known as Belzoni's tomb, as it was discovered by him; from it was taken the alabaster sarcophagus now in the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields. To this relic a new interest is given by the announcement, while these pages are passing through the press, of the discovery of the mummy of this very Manephthah, with thirty-eight other royal mummies, in the neighbourhood of Thebes. [Illustration: FIG. 15.--ROCK-CUT FAÇADE OF TOMB AT BENI-HASSAN.] Of the Ptolemaic period no tombs, except perhaps a few at Alexandria, are known to exist. TEMPLES.