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They dug about for three days and three nights, for they searched even in all the catacombs which were in the cemetery of Koptos; they turned over the steles of the scribes of the "double house of life," and read the inscriptions that they found on them. But they could not find the resting-place of Ahura and Mer-ab.
The corner marked Kom-de-Sultan is the enclosure which was emptied out by Mariette 's diggers, because of the abundance of burials with steles of the twelfth to eighteenth dynasties. They have removed all the earth to far below the base of the walls, thus digging in most parts right through the town of the Old Kingdom, which stood here before the great walls were built.
The great cemetery of Koptos is the scene, and the search occupies three days and nights in the catacombs and on the steles. Further, the tomb was at the south corner of the town of Pehemato, as Maspero doubtfully reads it.
Hence we must figure to ourselves two great steles standing up, side by side, on the east of the tomb; and this is exactly in accord with the next period that we know, in which, at Medum, Snofrui had two great steles and an altar between them on the east of his tomb; and Rahotep had two great steles, one on either side of the offering-niche, east of his tomb.
First there came into view a circular altar, and several steles of soft stone with rude carvings in relief, which seemed to point to interments beneath, and a system of offerings to, or on behalf of, the dead. Three feet below the altar, and 23 feet below the surface level, there came to light the top of the first of a group of five rock-hewn graves.
People talked learnedly about "holding" and "loosing," "steles," "reflexed bows," "56-pound bows," "backed" or "self-yew bows," as we talk about "rallies," "volleys," "smashes," "returns," and "16-ounce rackets." Miss Beighton shot divinely over ladies' distance 60 yards, that is and was acknowledged the best lady archer in Simla. Men called her "Diana of Tara-Devi."
Near these vases were found two beautiful gold bracelets; one, Number 3, is still in a perfect condition; the other, Number 4, has been, unfortunately, crushed by the yielding of the wall of the tomb in which it was deposited. Each royal grave seems to have had connected with it two great steles. Two, for instance, were found in the tomb of Merneit, one of which, however, was demolished.
As he spoke he showed a huge powder-horn which he had polished and upon which he had carved the following dire warning: "Ye mann what steles this powd^r horne, Will go to helle as sure as y^re borne." The scout slowly read the inscription and, shaking his head, said: "I think I should leave that horn behind. There are plenty more which are not so sharp in their warnings."
Perhaps Monsieur Bénédite is pressing his theme too far when he compares the close-cropped warriors on the handle with the shaven Sumerians and Elamites upon steles from Telloh and Susa, for their loin-girdles are African and quite foreign to the Euphrates Valley.
The upright strokes represent the steles outside the tombs, adjacent to which is the inclined stairway, while on the right is a diagram of the cemetery, with graves ar-ranged in rows around the tomb, with small steles standing up over the graves. A small piece of still another ivory tablet gives an interesting portrait of Den-Setui.
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