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Under the Hid Dynasty we find the last brick mastabas built for royalty, at Bêt Khallâf, and the first pyramids, in the Memphite necropolis. In the mastaba of Tjeser at Bêt Khallâf stone was used for the great portcullises which were intended to bar the way to possible plunderers through the passages of the tomb.
The Chaldæan tomb gives us, by its arrangement and furnishing, glimpses of a faith similar at bottom to that of Egypt, but we find nothing parallel to the representations of daily work and pleasure which fill the mastabas and the Theban sepulchres; there is nothing that can be compared to those animated forms and images that play over again on the tomb walls the long drama of a hundred acts whose first performance occupied so many centuries and filled a stage stretching from the swamps of the Delta to the cataracts of Syene.
It had no architectural merits to speak of, and therefore need not detain us. It is worth remarking, however, that some of these mastabas contain genuine arches, formed of unbaked bricks. The knowledge and use of the arch in Egypt go back then to at least the period of the Old Empire.
Some pots globular with wavy ledge handles, changing to cylinders with wavy band. Slate palettes in all prehistoric periods. Early Dynasties, 5500-4700 B.C. Towns and cemeteries. Great mastabas of brick. Wooden coffins begin. Great jars; hard, wheel-made pottery. Glazed tiles, &c. Stone bowls common. Cylinder sealings on clay.
The Step-Pyramid at Sakkâra is, so to speak, a series of mastabas of stone, imposed one above the other; it never had the continuous casing of stone which is the mark of a true pyramid. The pyramid of Snefru at Mêdûm is more developed.
Mastaba is the Arabic name for a bench or platform, and was applied by the natives to such tombs on account of the resemblance in shape. In the few cases where the top remains perfect at Gizeh, the side ends in a parabolic curve which turns over into the top surface without any cornice or moulding; the tops of walls in the courts of mastabas are similar.
One tomb, unfinished, was in the first instance a simple oblong hall, with a barrel roof and six columns. To form a serdab in the solid rock was almost impossible; while on the other hand, movable statues, if left in a room accessible to all comers, would be exposed to theft or mutilation. The serdab, therefore, was transformed, and combined with the stela of the ancient mastabas.
Many mastabas are from 30 to 40-feet in height, 150 feet in length, and 80 feet in width; while others do not exceed 10 feet in height or 15 feet in length. The faces are symmetrically inclined and generally smooth, though sometimes the courses retreat like steps. The materials employed are stone or brick.
Each wall was a house stocked with the objects depicted or catalogued upon its surface, and each was, therefore, carefully provided with a fictitious door, through which the Double had access to his goods. These paintings more briefly sum up the scenes depicted in the chapels of ordinary mastabas.
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