One of the largest was built on a very irregular foundation; and below the ground level I found the walls by which the builders had guided their work. Outside of each corner a wall was built up to the ground level; the sloping profile of the side was drawn on it; and then the wall was founded and built in line between the profiles. But the most attractive matter was the study of the inscriptions on the tombs, which show us the earliest forms of the hieroglyphs yet known. To preserve and examine their record I made a full-sized copy of the whole, and then published that reduced by photo-lithography. The evidence is the most valuable that we can yet obtain, on the earliest traceable civilization of the Egyptians. We have no remains certainly dated older than these; and the objects used as hieroglyphs here must have been already long familiar for them to have been used for signs. They therefore lead us back to the third dynasty, or even earlier times; and they show us various objects which are as yet quite unknown to us till much later ages. We can thus estimate the architecture of the pre-pyramid period. There were columns with spreading capitals and abaci, set up in rows to support the roof. There were papyrus columns, with a curious bell-top on the flower, the source of the heavier conventional form of later times; these were probably carved in wood, and originated from a wooden tent pole. There were octagonal fluted columns tapering to the top, and painted with a black dado, a white ornamental band, and red above. There was the cornice of uraeus serpents, which is so familiar in later times. And the granaries were already built with sloping sides, as seen on later tombs. In short, all the essentials of an advanced architecture seem to have been quite familiar to the Egyptians; and we must cease to argue from the simplicity of the religious buildings which we know--such as the granite temples of Gizeh, or the limestone temple of Medum--for deciding on the architecture of the fourth and third dynasties. We seem to be as far from a real beginning as ever. The animals drawn here show that the domestication of various species was no uncommon thing; apes, monkeys, many kinds of horned cattle, ibexes, &c., and various birds, all appear familiarly in this age. And of the wild birds the eagle, owl, and wag-tail, are admirably figured, far better than in later times. The Libyan race was already a civilized ally of Egypt, using bows and arrows much as we see them subsequently. The tools employed were of the established types; the adze and the chisel of bronze; the sickle of flint teeth set in wood; the axe of stone; the head of the bow drill--all these are shown us. And the exactitude of the standards of measure was a matter of careful concern; the cubit here does not differ from the standard of later times more than the thickness of a bit of stout card. The draught-board was exactly the same as that which is found down to Greek times.