Having examined the central chamber, the chambers at the sides should be next considered. The cross walls were built after the main brick outside was finished and plastered. The deep recesses coloured red, on the north side, were built in the construction; where the top is preserved entire, as in a side chamber on the north, it is seen that the roofing of the recess was upheld by building in a board about an inch thick. The shallow recesses along the south side were merely made in the plastering, and even in the secondary plastering after the cross walls were built. All of these recesses, except that at the south-west, were coloured pink-red, due to mixing burnt ochre with the white. The tomb of Merneit was not at first suspected to exist, as it had no accumulation of pottery over it; and the whole ground had been pitted all over by the Mission Amelineau making "_quelques sondages_," without revealing the chambers or the plan. As soon, however, as Petrie began systematically to clear the ground, the scheme of a large central chamber, with eight long chambers for offerings around it, and a line of private tombs enclosing it, stood apparent. The central chamber is very accurately built, with vertical sides parallel to less than an inch. It is about twenty-one feet wide and thirty feet long, or practically the same as the chamber of Zet. Around the chamber are walls forty-eight to fifty-two inches thick, and beyond them a girdle of long, narrow chambers forty-eight inches wide and 160 to 215 inches long. Of these chambers for offerings, Nos. 1, 2, 5, and 7 still contain pottery in place, and No. 3 contains many jar sealings. At a few yards distant from the chambers full of offerings is a line of private graves almost surrounding the royal tomb. This line has an interruption at the south end of the west side similar to the interruption of the retaining wall of the tomb of Zet at that quarter. It seems, therefore, that the funeral approached it from that direction. The chamber of the tomb of Merneit shows signs of burning on both the walls and the floor. A small piece of wood yet remaining indicates that it also had a wooden floor like the other tombs. Against the walls stand pilasters of brick; and, although these are not at present more than a quarter of the whole height of the wall, they originally reached to the top. These pilasters are entirely additions to the first building; they stand against the plastering and upon a loose layer of sand and pebbles about four inches thick. Thus it is clear that they belonged to the subsequent stage of the fitting of a roof to the chamber. The holes that are shown in the floor are apparently connected with the construction, as they are not in the mid-line where pillars are likely. At the edge of chamber No. 2 is a cast of plaited palm-leaf matting on the mud mortar above this level, and the bricks are set back irregularly. This shows the mode of finishing off the roof of this tomb.