In this rock-creek are the oldest graves belonging to the Old Empire. Their entrances are seen far up in the northern rocks, directly under the perpendicular wall, which ascends from the suddenly-inclined rubbish-mounds to the tops of the mountain-ridges. This outer position, and the paths bordered with low stone walls, leading steeply and straightly from the valley several hundred feet to their entrances, reminded me at once of the graves of Benihassan of the same period. They were made in the second half of the third millenium B.C. under the king of the eleventh and twelfth dynasties of Manetho, of which the former founded the might of Thebes, and erected the city into the seat of their dominion, independent of Memphis, the latter rendered it the imperial city of the whole country. These grottos, of which some are found on the neighbouring hills of the same, mostly descend deep into the rock in an obtuse angle, but are not painted or written; on the stone sarcophagi only were there any particular pains bestowed; these consist usually of the finest limestone, and are occasionally more than nine feet long, and are decorated and written in the careful and pure style of that period, but with a certain degree of sparingness. One of these sarcophagi we shall bring with us, as I have already once stated. It has, a few days since, been safely transported into the plain, after the long totally choked-up shaft had been excavated, and the living rock itself broken through, to obtain a shorter way out. The person to whom the grave belonged was the son of a prince, and himself bore the dynastic name Nentef, of the eleventh royal dynasty.