2. In the masonry of the corner of the terrace colonnade, a mason’s mallet, exactly similar to those found in the Queen’s Temple of Dêr el Bahari by the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1893-1896. 3. Generally distributed about the site were stamped bricks of the Queen (Pl. XXXII. 2), and also two larger bricks stamped with the cartouches of Thothmes I and Maat-ka-ra in conjunction, with the epithets [Illustration: hieroglyph] and [Illustration: hieroglyph] under their names (Pl. XXXII. 4). 4. A red crystalline sandstone tally-stone bearing the prenomen of Hatshepsût (Pl. XXXII. 1). 5. Low down, about the foundation level and half-way along the lower section of the north boundary wall, was a mass of stones with dressed faces for building. These stones, numbering seventy-six in all, were stacked with their faces downwards. Out of these stones thirty-five had painted in black upon their faces the signs [Illustration: hieroglyph], ‘the Good Festival’, with one of the batch having the supplementary word [Illustration: hieroglyph], ‘Brick’. Another had an illegible inscription beginning with the sign [Illustration: hieroglyph] and the word ‘Amen’. Six had peculiar signs or quarry marks scrawled in charcoal (see Fig. 11). That on the fifth stone can be read as [Illustration: hieroglyph], the name of the Queen’s architect Sen-mut. The sign [Illustration: hieroglyph], _Sent_, that occurs on four of the other stones might be interpreted as ‘a ground plan’. CHAPTER VIII PTOLEMAIC VAULTED GRAVES BY HOWARD CARTER Covering the upper stratum of the sites explored in the Birâbi were numerous brick-vaulted graves, mostly found not more than a metre or so beneath the surface rubbish (Pl. XXXIII). Probably when these vault-graves were first made they actually stood above the surface, their superstructures being in all probability intended to be exposed, as would be gathered from the fact of their external walls showing, in some cases, painted decoration upon the plaster still adhering to them (Pl. XXXIV. 2). In every case they were found to be plundered, and in the course of examining some forty examples that we came across, we rarely found but the very slightest traces of the burials they once contained. And all that we were able to gather from these vestiges of the actual interments was that they were of the Ptolemaic period, but almost pure Egyptian in type. This fact thoroughly corroborates Mr. Edgar’s statement that ‘during the Ptolemaic period many of the Greek inhabitants began to adopt the practice of mummification. At first naturally their custom went to the native undertakers, and their mummies were decorated just like those of the Egyptians. Here and there as time goes on, signs of Greek influence begin to appear. But it is not till the Roman period that the style becomes what could be properly called Greek.’[20]