fragments on the surface. Complete pots are
only found when digging. The work of 1909-10,
which attacked a portion of the site previously
enexplored, in the hope (which proved vain) of
finding previously unknown royal tombs of the
early period, revealed a great number of these,
stacked in more or less orderly rows, as if they
formed the borders of a road ( Pl. XVIII. 4,
XIX. 1). The first trace of this "road" had
already been found in the preceding season
( 1908-9) by M. Naville and Mr. Ayrton (E.E.F.
Arch. Report, 1908-9, p. 1 ). Nearly all the pots
were of a common type of the New Kingdom,
of a gourd-like shape with double swelling, of
which the lower bulb was the larger. The neck
of another common type is short and straight-
sided, with no lip or handle ( Pl. XIII. 4, XV. 5 ).
Less common types are also illustrated on
Pll. XIII. and XV. The small votive pots are
probably of the same date. Only one fragment
of very late date has been found ( Pl. XV. 9 ).

But, apart from fragments of the great Ist
Dynasty offering-jars, which had at an unknown
period strayed from the royal tombs, pottery of
an earlier date than the New Kingdom was also
found. At a lower level than the rows of large
New Kingdom pots, we found here and there, at
a few inches above the gebel surface, deposits of
pottery ( Pl. XIX. 2 ), often in fragments only,
which seem to be of the Old Kingdom. Their
ware is of much the same brown coarse character
as that of the later pots, but rather harder,
though without the very hard surface of the
Ist Dynasty jars. The shapes of the perfect
vases found may be seen from the illustrations
( Pll. XI.- XIII. and XV.- XVI. . Simple footless
jars [1] ( PI. XII. 5, XVI. 1, 2 ), elongated cups
[2] ( Pl. XII. 1, 2, XVI. 5 ), a cylindrical jar of
the early type [3] ( Pl. XI. , XV. 2 ), pot-stands
[4] ( Pl. XIII. 11, XVI. 7 ), two tall stands, one of
good shape [5, 6] ( Pl. XI. , XV. 3 ), small bowls
[7] ( Pl. XII. 6, XVI. 4, 6 ), saucer-shaped jar-
stoppers with broad ledges [8] ( Pl. XII. 7,
XVI. 8, 9 ), and peculiar "corks," hollow balls of
clay with a single hole below [9] (diagram,
Pl. XII. 9 ), complete the list of perfect specimens.
The selection of specimens now in the British
Museum gives the following measurements:
[1] No. 49294, H. 9 ins. (23 cm.); [2] Nos.
49296-7, H. 5 ins. (12·75 cm.); [3] No. 49298,
H. 6 1/2 ins. (16·5 cm.); [4] No. 49304, H. 4 1/4 ins.
(10·8 cm.); [5] No. 49305, H. 10 ins. (25·5 cm.);
[7] Nos. 49300-2, D. 6 ins. (15·3 cm.); [8] No.
49306, D. 4 3/4 ins. (12·1 cm.); [9] Nos. 49307-8,
D. 3 1/2 ins. (9 cm.). The
stand type [6] is not in the British Museum but
went elsewhere.

It is evident from these pots that the custom
of leaving vases as votive offerings on the site of
the early royal tombs had begun as early as the
time of the Old Kingdom. During the Middle
Kingdom and XVIIIth Dynasty we find no trace
of the custom, but under the XIXth Dynasty
it evidently revived, and to the later New
Kingdom belong most of the innumerable votive
offerings that have given Umm el-Ga'ab its
name. This fact seems to square with the pro-
bability that the cult of the early kings revived
after the time of the XIXth Dynasty, when we
find Seti I. venerating the memory of his royal
predecessors back to the composite "Mena" of
legend on the walls of his funerary temple.
Then later on we have the stone "Bed of
Osiris," found by Ameélineau in the tomb of
Shesti (Khent or Zer), to testify to the fact that
this particular tomb was, probably about the
time of the XXIInd Dynasty, regarded with
special reverence, probably as a tomb of Osiris. ¹
Perhaps much of the later pottery may be,

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