Menes, whose accession, according to the arrangement of Lepsius, would fall in the year 3892 B.C., was followed on the throne by King Athotis (Ateta), who was said to have built the citadel at Memphis. Next came Kenkenes, whose successor was Uenephes, to whom is ascribed the erection of the pyramids. We have seen what care and labour the Egyptians devoted to their tombs, their "everlasting houses." The west, where the sun sets, and the desert spreads out in boundless expanse beyond the Libyan range, belonged in their minds to the gods of night, of the under-world, and of death. About ten miles to the west of Memphis there rises a desolate and barren plateau of rock, which for many miles runs parallel to the river, about 100 feet above the blooming and animated valley through which the Nile takes its course. In that rocky soil, which separates the fruitful land from the desert, the bodies of the dead were placed in chambers, either hewn in the solid stone, or, where the soil was less firm, built of masonry, and thus secured even from the overflow of the river. Even the kings sought their resting-places on this plateau of rock. They, above all, gave attention to the solidity and durability of their tombs; and in death, as in life, they wished to be kings. The place where a king rested must be marked as royal, and visible from a distance; the grave of a king must tower over the rest; his chamber must be of all most difficult to open. Thus at first blocks of stone were rolled upon the closed burial-place of a king, or a mound of earth was raised over it, if sand and soil were to be obtained in the neighbourhood. The strong winds which blew from the desert made it, however, necessary to secure these mounds, and cover them with stone. Hence by degrees the sepulchral heaps acquired a definite shape: they were rectangular structures, lessening toward the apex; then, by extending the base and sharpening the gradient, they were brought into the form of pyramids, and thus obtained the greatest possible firmness and solidity. For a similar reason the core, or central part, was no longer made of earth, but of brick; where blocks of stone could be obtained they were fitted into the core with more and more regularity, until at last these structures were completed within and without of rectangular hewn blocks of stone in regular layers, and artificial mountains of stone towered over the sepulchral chambers of the kings.