[179]See Frankfort, “The Origin of Monumental Architecture in Egypt,” in _American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures_, LVIII (1941), 329-58. In this article we have not only discussed the detailed technical similarities between recessed brick building in the two countries but also demonstrated the inadequacy of prevalent explanations of the Egyptian examples, “irrespective the fact that they failed to account for the contemporary construction of similar buildings in Mesopotamia.” [180]This does not imply that they must have been mean structures. In Uganda, for instance, no fewer than a thousand men are continuously engaged in the royal enclosure on building and repairs (John Roscoe, _The Baganda_, 366). [181]See also Borchardt, “Das Grab des Menes,” in _Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache_, XXXVI (1898), 87-105. [182]This is the _Riemchenverband_, observed by the excavators of Erech (E. Heinrich, _Schilf und Lehm_, 40) and of Tell Asmar (Delougaz and Lloyd, _Pre-Sargonid Temples in the Diyala Region_ [Chicago, 1942], 169, Fig. 127). [183]In our figure and in the tomb of Neithotep (“Das Grab des Menes”—see n. 2, above), the structures, like the Babylonian temples, appear to stand on a brick platform; but in reality a low revetment was built up against the outside of the walls after these had been built up—complete with recesses—from the foundations. In Babylonia this apparent platform is called a _kisu_. [184]Our Fig. 48 shows the impressions of these round timbers in the brick work of the White Temple at Erech, of which Fig. 45 shows the plan. Fig. 49 shows a wooden sarcophagus found in a First Dynasty tomb at Tarkhan in Egypt, which imitates a recessed building with a similar strengthening of round timbers. Fig. 50 shows an actual tomb found at Abu Roash in Lower Egypt with some timbers still in place. [185]The Egyptian designs (Figs. 42, 44 left, 43) are supposed to render a palace façade, an assumption incapable of proof and ignoring the fact that the tombs have recesses on all four sides. But whatever the original of this design may have been, its abbreviated rendering in Egypt resembles an abbreviated rendering of temples in Mesopotamia (Fig. 44 right) very closely. [186]At Abydos three of these, perhaps built under the Second Dynasty, survive. See Petrie, _Abydos_, III (London, 1904), Plates V-VIII. [187]Scharff, _Archaeologische Beiträge zur Frage der Entstehung der Hieroglyphenschrift_ (München, 1942). [188]See _Kingship and the Gods_, 20 and 350, n. 15.