THE EARLIEST TOMBS. 4. The lower parts of the ground inside the enclosure had been very thoroughly looted, chiefly by the natives of El Kab, when cultivating. We found many small graves about 6 feet long, 2 feet wide, and waist deep, but containing no bones, and with so little pottery in them that it took some time to determine their period. But in the two low mounds to the north, and the larger one in the south, graves of several kinds soon appeared. Of these one set were clearly later than the rest. Their enclosure walls, within which several burials were found, were at right angles to the great wall of the town, and cut through the other graves (mastabas) which, though parallel to one another, were skew to the town walls. These earlier tombs were of several types: (1) mastabas with square shafts; (2) mastabas with sloping "stairways," both of crude brick; (3) burials in the kind of large earthenware pot that our workmen call a _majūr_; and (4) burials of that now well-known type which has been called New Race, Libyan, Neolithic, etc., and which is distinguished by the contracted position of the body with the head to the south, and by a very definite class of pottery, paint slabs, beads, etc. The mastabas were found both within and outside of the town walls, one group (PL. XXIII) lying quite close to them. On three diorite bowls found in these graves (one inside the walls, the others outside) the name of Sneferu appeared. As this is the only king's name occurring in any of these tombs, it seems probable that most of them may belong to the reign of Sneferu, or to the period immediately following. And the town walls, being built through the Old Kingdom cemetery, are, of course, the later in date. About thirteen "stairway" tombs and thirty-seven mastabas were examined. The precise number cannot be given, for when the walls of the mastaba are entirely denuded, and only the well is left, one cannot be sure that the grave was ever of the mastaba form. Of smaller graves which yielded any evidence, there were about fifty-three; but many more, which, from their position, orientation, and size, could be assigned to the early period, were quite empty, or contained only a few potsherds.