12. Next we may describe the small graves, generally about 3-4 feet deep, in which there is no chamber for burial, but the body is laid in the shaft or open grave. These were found chiefly inside the fort of El Kab, though a few were outside the walls. Some were distinctly of Neolithic type, but of that later variety in which the fine black and red pottery is not found. Of the earlier type, only one small group of twenty graves was discovered; these were well outside the town, on the west side of the railway, and so thoroughly cleared out that only half a dozen chips of pottery remained to show their real nature. But of the later kind many examples were found, and still more numerous were the empty graves which, by their size and position, seemed to belong to the same class. This type is characterised by the contracted position of the body, the vertical jars with cordage pattern, the square slate palettes, the flat alabaster dishes, and four shapes of alabaster vases (X, 22, 44, 48, 31), two of which often occur also in the mastabas. The first group obtained were inside an oblong brick building, which showed red in the distance, the colour being due to the great number of broken pots of the Old Kingdom (XII, 20, 23) scattered over it. The earth within its walls was found to consist largely of these pots, of which there was an unbroken layer, two feet thick. Below this we came upon the Neolithic tombs. The walls were of the small bricks which we soon learnt to associate with the work of the Old Kingdom in El Kab. It is not probable that the walls had any relation to the tombs, for they were not quite parallel to one another, and there were more tombs outside these walls. But it is important to observe that a thick layer of the coarse pottery of the Old Kingdom here overlies Neolithic tombs. It is just possible that the pottery may have been thrown by cultivators upon this mound, but the probabilities against this seemed to me very strong. In one of these tombs (L, 2) the body was found complete, lying on the left side, with the head to the south. At the head end were one wavy-handled pot of a late type (XI, 3), two vertical jars (as XI, 5), with cordage pattern, a square slate palette, and above these a pot (XI, 9), with decoration in wavy red lines; also an alabaster cup (X, 38), containing six finger-bones. At the other end were a bowl, and two vases of well-known forms. The middles of the graves were generally empty, and bones were rarely found; the stone bowls, which formed the bulk of the finds, were at the north and south ends. It does not seem worth while to transfer from the notebooks the full description of each of these small tombs, for they have been so thoroughly robbed and turned over that the position of the different objects in the tomb has no particular meaning, but it may be well to give a short catalogue of the objects found (_v._ PL. XXVII). Each of the tombs is about 1·50 m. to 2·00 m. long, ·90 m. wide, and 1·50 deep.